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Wm.   McKiNLEY  Reads  the  Accoun 


Election  to  his  Mother. 


XFiXTE:    STORIES 


OF 


Famous  Men  and  Women 

OF  AMERICA 


CONTAINING 

FULL    ACCOUNTS    OF   THE    LIVE5  AND    HEROIC    DEEDS   OF   ABOUT    HALF  A 

HUNDRED    ILLUSTRIOUS    MEN    AI^D    WOMEN  WHO    HAVE   MADE 

OUR   COUNTRY   GREAT   AND   OUR    FLAG    RESPECTED 

THROUGHOUT   THE    WORLD 

Prom  the  Time  of  Q«)rge  and  Mary  Washin^on  to 
Admiral  Dewey  and  Clara  Barton 


PREPARED  BY  A  CORPS  OF  DISTINGUISHED  WRITERS: 

JOHN   S.   C.    ABBOTT,    WILLIAM   QARNETT,    D.  C   L.,    Prof.   W.   W.  BIRDSALL. 
EDWARD  S.    ELLIS  and  Others 


Illustrated  with  Magnificent  Full-page  Photogravure  Portraits 

AnrO  A  WEALTH  OF  OTHER  FINE  ENGRAVINQS 


*'  Lives  of  great  men  all  remind  us 
We  can  make  our  lives  sublime. 
And,  departing,  leave  behind  us 
Footprints  on  Ihe  sands  of  time." 


THF  LiBRAfiY  OF 
CONGRESS, 

T  KO   CllPttc    RtCSivED 

NOV,    0    190? 


corv  B 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1898,  by 

W.   I''..  SCUI.L, 

in  the  Dilice  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 

Ali  rigliis  reserved. 


AI.I,    I  l-RSONS    AKK   WARNED    NOT    TO    INFRINGK    UPON    OUR    COrVRTOHT    HY    USINC,    EITHER    THE 
MATTKK    OR    Tllli    I'lCTUKKS    IN    THIS    VOLUME. 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  tomb  of  Mohammed  is  said  to  be  ornamented  witli  over  eleven  million 
dollars'  worth  of  precious  stones,  and  devout  followers  of  Islam  make  long 
and  toilsome  pilgrimag-es  from  all  parts  of  the  world  to  gaze  upon  these 
dazzling  gems,  not  one  of  which  they  may  take  for  themselves. 

America  has  a  hundred  more  helpful  shrines  than  the  jeweled  tomb  of  the 
Arabian  prophet  in  the  lives  and  memories  of  her  distinguished  sons  and  daugh- 
ters, and  they  are  set  with  gems  of  character  more  brilliant  than  diamonds,  more 
beautiful  than  topaz,  and  with  "  price  far  above  rubies."  It  is  to  these  shrines  that 
this  volume  conducts  the  youth  of  our  land,  and,  having  shown  them  all,  invites 
the  young  reader  to  select  and  appropriate  unto  himself  whatsoever  he  will. 

When  Lord  Macaulay  wrote,  "There  is  no  history  but  biography,"  he  spoke 
the  truth,  for  it  is  what  the  great  men  and  women  of  any  nation  do  that  make 
up  the  annals  of  that  nation.  But  biography  is  more  than  history,  and  the  latter 
cannot  supply  its  place.  In  the  reading  of  history  we  fail  to  find  a  connected 
story  of  the  lives  of  its  illustrious  makers.  They  are  seen  only  in  the  light  of 
their  great  public  deeds.  Neither  the  beginning  nor  ending  of  the  career  is 
shown,  except,  now  and  then,  in  cold  statistics. 

What  schoolboy  who  makes  George  Washington,  or  Abraham  Lincoln,  or 
Grant,  or  Lee  his  model  great  man  does  not  turn  from  his  United  States  His- 
'  tory  with  a  feeling  of  disappointment  because  it  does  not  take  him  into  closer 
confidence  and  tell  him  of  the  private  lives  of  these  heroes  ? — where  did  they 
come  from  ? — what  were  their  circumstances  in  boyhood  ? — what  their  trials  and 
opportunities  wher.  they  were  young  like  myself? — were  they  like  other  boys  or 
were  they  always  superior  beings,  born  great,  and  continually  in  the  midst  of 
prominent  scenes  or  doing  wonderful  acts,  as  history  presents  them? 

These  are  some  of  the  natural  questions  that  come  to  the  mind  of  the  as- 
piring young  reader  who  desires  to  make  his  life  useful  and  honorable,  and  who 


5  INTRODUCTION. 

would  use  some  great  man,  or  several  great  men,  as  his  models.  He  wants  ta 
know  what  opportunity,  what  hope,  there  is  for  him  to  be  like  them.  Biography 
answers  these  laudable  inquiries  upon  which  history  is  silent. 

Still  less  comfort  does  the  ambitious  girl  find  upon  the  pages  of  the  national 
history  in  seeking  an  acquaintance  with  her  model  great  woman  ;  for  here,  as 
upon  the  stage  of  a  Chinese  theatre,  few  women  are  to  be  seen,  and  they  only 
in  glimpses  where  circumstances  intrude  them  forward.  And  yet,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  woman  has  contributed  vasdy  to  our  national  growth,  and  deserves 
scarcely  less  prominence  than  man.  In  this  volume  she  has  that  recognition  to 
which  she  is  so  jusdy  entided.  George  Washington  becomes  all  the  greater 
hero  when  the  exalted  virtues  of  Mary  Washington,  his  mother  (to  whom  he  said 
he  owed  all  that  he  was),  stand  out  as  they  do  in  this  volume — a  background 
from  which  the  great  son  steps  fordi  in  bolder  relief.  And  so  Abraham  Lin- 
coln and  Garfield  and  Stonewall  Jackson  and  President  McKinley  found  the 
seeds  of  their  greatness  in  the  noble  mothers  whose  lives  are  printed — some  of 
them  for  the  first  time — in  chapters  fully  as  prominent  as  those  devoted  to  their 
ereat  sons  in  this  volume.  In  like  manner  do  the  noble  sisters  of  humanity, 
heralds  of  liberty  and  angels  of  mercy — Frances  Willard,  Dorothea  Dix,  Harriet 
Beecher  Stovve,  Mrs.  Livermore,  Susan  B.  Anthony,  Mrs.  Ballington  Booth,  and 
others — pass  before  the  young  girls  and  women  who  read  this  volume,  with  the 
magnedsm  of  their  lovely  and  loving  characters  and  the  exalted  inspiration  of 
their  noble  lives  and  beneficent  deeds. 

It  is  the  province  of  these  biographies  not  only  to  entertain  by  the  narration 
of  wonderful  achievements,  but  to  conduct  the  reader  into  the  private  lives  and 
characters  of  these  great  men  and  women,  to  encourage  and  inspire,  and  by  the 
force  of  example  to  awaken  a  spirit  of  emulation  in  the  young.  In  these  true  sto- 
ries of  famous  men  and  women  we  have  a  complete  picture  of  their  public  and  pri- 
vate records  woven  skillfully  together.  The  early  lives  of  these  illustrious  charac- 
ters with  their  humble  environments — aye,  often  discomforts,  struggles  and  poverty 
— will  find  perfect  counterparts  in  the  circumstances  and  surroundings  of  many 
of  our  young  readers.  Here  the  ambitious  but  hampered  youth  will  find  their 
heroes  and  heroines  have  traveled  the  same  roads  which  they  themselves  are 
now  treading,  and  encountered  and  struggled  with  the  same  or  similar  difficul- 
ties and  temptations  as  those  which  they  are  now  battling  against. 

There  is  nothing  so  potent  in  its  influence  for  good  as  the  examples  of  truly 
great  leaders.  It  would  be  hard  to  overestimate  the  power  which  the  lives  of 
Washington,  Franklin,  Frances  Willard,  and  other  noble  men  and  w^omen  treated 
in  this  book  have  had  in  the  past  and  will  continue  to  have  upon  succeeding 
gfenerations. 

Every  one  of  these  great  names  stands  for  something.  Washington  repre- 
sents truthfulness  and  integrity ;  Jefferson,  the  democratic  idea  of  the  rule  of  the 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

people ;  Franklin,  industry  and  devotion  to  duty,  with  statesmanship  and  diplo- 
macy ;  Frances  Willard,  self-sacrifice  for  the  betterment  of  the  home  life  of  the 
nation ;  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  the  liberation  of  the  enslaved.  And  so  we 
might  continue  throughout  the  list — they  all  stand  for,  as  they  lived  for,  some 
noble  attribute  of  character  for  the  elevation  of  their  country  or  the  advancement 
of  the  world  toward  a  nobler  destiny.  They  embody  great  virtues,  they  stand 
for  great  principles,  they  illustrate  noble  qualities,  and  no  man  can  estimate 
their  helpful  and  educational  value  to  those  who  read  them. 

When  Lincoln  was  a  boy  he  procured  a  life  of  Washington,  and  read  it 
over  and  over  many  times  in  his  backwoods  home  by  the  light  of  a  pine- knot 
fire.  Washington  was  his  model,  and  how  like  him  in  character — truth,  honor, 
and  every  brave  and  noble  quality — did  this  boy  of  an  ill-starred  childhood  be- 
come!  Side  by  side  with  the  father  of  his  country  stands  Lincoln,  its  savior, 
both  equally  enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  a  grateful  nation — both  held  up  as 
models  of  true  and  exalted  or^eatness  throuorhout  all  civilization. 

Benjamin  Franklin  was  a  true  lover  of  biography.  The  lives  of  all  great 
men  he  read  with  avidity ;  and,  he  declares,  the  reading  of  one  book  made  him 
what  he  was. 

Henry  Clay,  it  is  said,  read  "  Plutarch's  Lives "  of  ancient  men  of  fame 
entirely  through  twenty  times  in  ten  years.  The  special  chapters  devoted  to 
great  orators  he  read  perhaps  one  hundred  times  over,  so  that  the  published 
lives  of  Demosthenes  and  Cicero  were  as  familiar  to  him  as  the  recollections  of 
his  own  career.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  "  the  tongue  of  burning  fire  and  of  silvery, 
witching  eloquence"  descended  from  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  masters 
upon  him,  and  that  listening  multitudes  hung  breathless  upon  his  utterances, 
while  he,  at  his  pleasure,  lashed  them  into  a  mad  fury  or  soothed  them  as  with 
the  lullaby  song  of  a  mother? 

In  the  days  of  Washington,  Franklin,  Clay,  and  Lincoln,  the  catalogue  of 
great  Americans  was  but  small ;  now  it  is  a  large  one.  The  youth  of  the  present 
day  has  vastly  the  advantage  of  them  in  so  many  noble  models  after  which  to 
fashion  the  pattern  of  his  own  destiny. 

These  biographies  teach  the  young  men  and  young  women  of  America  the 
important  lesson  that 

**  Honor  and  shame  from  no  conditions  rise," 

and  that,  in  America  at  least,  "  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal ;  "  but,  while  all 
have  a  chance,  "everyone  must  be  the  architect  of  his  own  fortune."  It  is  this 
truth  impressed,  as  it  is  in  this  volume,  upon  the  youth  of  our  country,  with  the 
opportunity  for  its  application  by  the  boys  and  girls,  young  men  and  young 
women  alike,  that  is  at  once  the  glory  of  our  American  institutions,  the  rainbow 
of  promise  to  every  aspiring  youth,  and  the  hope  of  America's  future  greatness. 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

If  the  foreign  accusation  that  Americans  are  natural  hero  worshipers  be 
true,  we  should  answer,  it  is  well  they  should  be  so ;  for  they  have  the  grandest 
heroes  and  heroines  that  any  nation  can  boast,  and  to  read  their  lives  is  to  kin- 
dle every  latent  ember  of  patriotism  into  a  glowing  blaze,  and  to  awaken  every 
noble  sentiment  of  the  human  soul.  Their  influence  has  gone  out  like  beacon- 
lights  to  all  the  world,  and  their  names  stand  as  synonyms  of  patriotism,  exalted 
courage,  freedom,  wisdom,  humanity,  charity,  love,  and  mercy,  It  is  through 
them  that  the  glory  of  America  shines  above  that  of  all  other  lands  foremost  and 
uppermost  in  the  vanguard  of  progress  with  "a  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  and  for  the  people,"  founded  upon  principles  and  fostered  by  a  citi- 
zenship which  are  a  guarantee  that  it  "  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

It  is  with  a  pleasant  sense  of  satisfaction  over  a  work  well  done,  and  of  con- 
fidence In  its  hearty  reception,  that  the  publishers  present  this  volume  to  the 
public.  It  has  been  prepared  on  a  plan  peculiarly  its  own.  It  embraces  the 
greatest  men  and  women  of  America  from  the  days  of  George  and  Mary  Wash- 
ington to  Admiral  Dewey  and  Frances  Willard,  and  it  will  be  read  with  pleasure 
and  profit  by  old  and  young  alike. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


VOIvUNlK   I. 

FATHER  AND  FOUNDER  OF  THE   REPUBLIC,  paoi 

George  Washington 17 

OUR  FIRST   GREAT   PHILOSOPHER   AND   STATESMAN, 

Benjamin  Franklin 43 

THE   PIONEER  OF  DEMOCRACY   IN  AMERICA, 

Thomas  Jefferson 59 

THE   HERO  OF  THE  WAR  OF   1812,  AND   POPULAR  PRESIDENT, 

Andrew  Jackson 75 

POPULAR  ORATOR,  PATRIOT,  AND   STATESMAN, 

Henry  Clay  ......      88 

THE  GREAT  DEFENDER  OF  NATIONAL  UNION, 

DanielWebster 104 

THE  GREAT  PRESERVER  OF  THE  UNION, 

Abraham  Lincoln 119 

THE  SUCCESSFUL   HERO  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR, 

Ulysses  S.  Grant 143 

THE  GREAT  COMMANDER  OF   THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMIES, 

Robert  E.  Lee 163 

THE  FIRST  HERO  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NAVY, 

John  Paul  Jones 175 

9 


10  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

VICTOR  OF  THE  BATTLE  OF  LAKE  ERIE,  pact 

Oliver  H.  Perry •    179 

THE  GREAT  UNION  NAVAL  COMMANDER, 

David  G.  Farragut 181 

THE  BELOVED  PRESIDENT  OF  A  UNITED  COUNTRY, 

James  A.  Garfield 189 

SOLDIER,  ORATOR,  AND  STATESMAN, 

Benjamin  Harrison 201 

SUCCESSFUL  LAWYER,  GOVERNOR,  AND  PRESIDENT, 

Grover  Cleveland 204 

THE  FINANCIER  AND  STATESMAN, 

John  Sherman 208 

THE  GREAT  "SPEAKER"  AND  DEBATER, 

Thomas  Braokett  Reed 212 

THE  NOBLE  AND  PATRIOTIC  SENATOR, 

William  B.  Allison 216 

STATESMAN   AND   FEARLESS   LEADER   OF   THE   "ROUGH   RIDERS." 

Theodore  Roosevelt   .        .         .        .        .         .219 

THE  DISTINGUISHED  TARIFF  REFORMER  AND  WAR  PRESIDENT, 

William  McKinley 223 

THE  APOSTLE  OF    SUNSHINE  AND  CHEERFULNESS, 

Chauncey  Mitchell  Depew 220 

THE  ELOQUENT  DEMOCRATIC  CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT, 

William  Jennings  Bryan 230 

COMMANDER  OF  OUR  NAVY  FOR  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CUBA, 

William  T.  Sampson  .....     23^ 

THE  HERO  OF  THE  BATTLE  OF  MANILA, 

George  Dewby       ,,,,..    237 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  ii 

COM-MANDER  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  ARMY,  page 

Nelson  A.  Miles 241 

THE  BRAVE   UNITED  STATES  CONSUL-GENERAL  TO  CUBA, 

FiTZHUGH  Lee        .....     244 

OUR   FIRST   GOVERNOR   OF  THE  PHILIPPINE  ISLANDS. 

Wesley  Merritt       ....  .     249 

SECRETARY   OF  STATE  DURING  THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN   WAR, 

William  R.  Day      o 252 


VOLUME    II. 

THE  NOBLE  MOTHER  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON, 

Mary  Ball 254 

"AMERICA'S  MOST  GRACIOUS  SOCIAL  QUEEN," 

Dolly  Madison 269 

THE  TWO  GOOD   MOTHERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 

Nancy  Hanks  and  Sally  Johnson       .        .        .        .     279 

THE  SORROWFUL  MOTHER  OF  STONEWALL  JACKSON, 

Julia  Neale 286 

THE  AUTHOR  OF  "UNCLE  TOM'S  CABIN," 

Harriet  Beecher  Stowe 293 

THE   HEAVEN-SENT   ANGEL  OF   MERCY   AND    PRISON   REFORM, 

Dorothea  Dix 303 

SLAVERY'S   ENEMY   AND   FREEDOM'S   FRIEND, 

LUCRETIA    MOTT 312 

THE  HEROIC  MOTHER  OF  JAMES  A.  GARFIELD, 

Eliza  Ballou 318 

THE   CHILDREN'S  AUTHOR   AND  HUMANITY'S   FRIEND, 

Louisa  May  Alcott 3:^7 


12  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

THE  DEVOTED   WIFE  OF  GENERAL  GRANT,  pagb 

Julia  Dent  Grant 334 

THE  FAMOUS  CHAMPION  OF  AVOMAN-SUFFRAGE, 

Susan  B.  Anthony    .        c        .        .        c        ,    344 

THE  BANKER'S  DAUGHTER   FAMOUS  IN  LITERATURE, 

Julia  Ward  Howe 350 

TEACHER,   EDITOR,   LECTURER,   AND  HOSPITAL  NURSE, 

Mary  A.  Livermore o     355 

THE  NOBLE   MOTHER   OF   PRESIDENT   McKINLEY, 

Nancy -Allison 353 

THE   INSPIRING   SPIRIT   OF   THE   AMERICAN   VOLUNTEERS, 

Mrs.  Maud  (Ballington)  Booth         .         .         ,        .     372 

THE   FOUNDER  AND   FIRST   PRESIDENT  OF   THE  WORLD'S  W.  C.  T.   U., 

Frances  E.  Willard  .        ,        ,        .        .     397 

THE  FOUNDER  AND  FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  AMERICAN  RED  CROSS, 

Clara  Barton     ......      407 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Progress  (head-piece) 

Washington's  Reception  at  Trenton 
Washington  Taking  the   Oath,     . 
Washington  Crossing  the   Delaware 
Old  Birmingham  Meeting  House, 
Washington  Reproving  Lee,     .     . 
Washington   and  Rochambeau,    . 
Tomb  o(  Washington,  Mt.  Vernon, 
Penn's  Treaty  with  the  Indians,    . 
Penn's  Residence  in  Second   Street, 
Death  of  General  Wolfe,  .... 
Rear  View  of  Independence  Hall, 

Franklin's  Grave, 

The  Liberty  Bell  at  New  Orleans, 
Independence  Hall.  Philadelphia,  Front 
Stage-coach  of  Jefferson's  Time,   , 
Signing  Declaration  of  Independence, 
Fairfax  Court  House,  Virginia,    . 

Virginia  Currency, 

An  Indian  Mother 

Kentucky  Scene  in  Jackson's  Youth, 
The  Indian's  Declaration   of  War, 
The   Old   Marigny   House,   a   Relic 

the  War  of  1812 

An  Indian  Fight  in  Florida, 
An  Old  Virginia  Mansion,    .... 
An  Old  Virginia  Mansion — Interior, 
Turnpike  in  tlie  Blue-Grass  Region, 
Residence  of  a  Southern  Planter,  . 
Faneuil    Hall,   Boston,  which    Webster 

called  "  The  Cradle  of  Liberty,"     .     . 
Lincoln's  Boyhood  Home  in  Kentucky, 
Home  of  Lincoln,  Gentryville,Tndiana, 
Opening  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal, 
■ — -Lincoln  and  His  Son  "  Tad,"    .     .     . 
Libby  Prison  in  Richmond, 
View  of  Andersonville  Prison, 
- — —The  Capture  of  Booth,  Slayer  of  Lincoln 
Main  Building,  Centennial  Exposition, 

Decoration  Day 

Unites  States  Mint,  New  Orleans, 
Moist  Weather  at  the  Front,     .     .     . 
Surrender  of  General  Lee,    .... 
General    Grant    and    Li    Hung    Chang, 

Viceroy  of  China, 


3 
20 
24 
28 
30 
31 
34 
38 
40 


46  .Lee  and  the  Union  Soldier 


50 
53 
56 

59 
62 

64 
67 
69 

71 

75 
77 
81 

83 
85 
92 

93 
96 

lOI 

108 
120 
123 

124 
130 

134 
136 

137 
143 
146 
150 
152 
154 


The  Funeral  Train  of  General  Grant, 

An  Old  Indian  Farmhouse 

John  Brown  after  His  Capture,      .     .     . 

The  James  River  and  Country  near 
Richmond, 

Libby  Prison  in  1884,  before  its  re- 
moval to  Chicago 

"  General  Lee  to  the  Rear,"       .     .     .     . 

Lee  and  the  Ferryman, 


156 


Monument  to  General  Lee  at  Richmond, 
Va., 

Eight-inch  Gun  of  the  "  Baltimore,"  .     . 

Bailey's  Dam  on  the  Red  River,  .     .     . 

One  of  the  "  Miantonomah's  "  Four  Ten- 
inch  Breech-loading  Rifles,    .... 

The  Farragut  Monument  in  Washington 
City, 

Model  of  United  States  Man-of-War,      . 

The  Home  of  Garfield's  Childhood,  .     . 

Garfield  on  the  Towpath 

Hiram  College, 

Garfield's  Assassination, 

Tablet  in  the  Waiting-room  of  the  Rail- 
way Station  where  Garfield  was  Shot, 

The  Battle  of   Manila 

Naval  Heroes  of   the  Spanish-American 
War  (group) 

Leading   Commanders   of  our  Army  in 
the   Spanish-American   War   (group), 

Mary  Ball  as  a  Young  Woman  Spinning 
Flax, 

Mary  Washington  House  at  Fredericks- 
burg  

The  Mother  of  Washington    Receiving 
the  Marquis  Lafayette, 

The  New  Mary  Washington  Monument 
at  Fredericksburg, 

The  Burning  of  Washington,  .... 

The   Birthplace   of    Abraham    Lincoln, 

House  in  which  Stonewall  Jackson  Died, 
Richmond,  Va., 

Negro  Village  in  Georgia 

New    England    Cotton     Mill    of    Mrs. 
Stowe's  Time, 


158 
160 
165 

166 

168 
170 
171 

172 

174 
181 

183 
186 

187 
188 
190 
191.' 

193 
198 

200 
232 

233 
241 

254" 

261 

263 

267 
276 
281 

289 
294 

30a 


13 


14        LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  FULL-PAGE  LITHOGRAPHS. 


PAGE 

Dorothea  Dix  on  the  Battlefield,  .  .  .310 
Lucretia    Mott  Protecting    the    Negro, 

Dangerfield,  fi-oni  the  Mob  in  Phila.,  313 
The  Home  of  Lucretia  Mott  near  Phila.,  316 
The  Boy,  Garfield,  Bringing  His    First 

Day's  Earnings  to  His  Mother,  .  .318 
Garfield  Kissing  His  Mother  when   He 

Took  the  Oath  of  Office,  ....  323 
Louisa's  School  in  the  Barn,  ....  327 
Miss  Alcott  as  a  Hospital  Nurse, .  .  .331 
The  Happy  Meeting  on  Grant's  Return 

from  the  Mexican  War, 337 

Grant,  Miss  Dent,  and  Her  Brother,  .  .339 
Mrs.  Grant  Visiting  the  General  at  the 

Front, 340 

Grant  at  Windsor  Castle, 341 


PAGH 

Famous  Women  Orators  and  Reformers 
(group),       ...........  348 

Mrs.  Livermore,  the  Young  Governess, 

in  the  South,  .     .     „ 355 

Mrs.  Livermore  as  a  Young  Teacher,  .  358 
Mrs.  Livermore  the  Editress,     ....  360 

Mrs.  Livermore  the  Lecturer 361 

Residence    of    Mother    McKinley,  Can- 
ton, Ohio, 367 

Hope  Hall,  Mrs.  Booth's  Prison  Reform 

Home, „ 375 

Mrs.  Booth  and  Her  Prison  Relief  Corps,  378 

Mrs.  Booth  and  Her  Children 379 

Birthplace  of  Frances  E.  Willard,  .  .  397 
Miss  Willard's  First  School,  ....  399 
Frances  E.  Willard  and  Her  Mother,     .  402 


LIST  OF  PORTRAITS  AND  FULL-PAGE  LITHOGRAPHS. 


Washington  and  His  Mother 

(lithograph) Frontispiece 

George  Washington, 16 

Benjamin  Franklin 42 

Thomas  Jefferson, 58 

Andrew  Jackson, 74 

Martin  Van  Buren,     .......     86 

Henry  Clay, 89 

James  K.  Polk 99 

Daniel    Webster, 105 

John  Tyler, 1 13 

Millard  Fillmore, 1 15 

Abraham  Lincoln, 118 

Winfield  Scott,    „ 133 

Andrew  Johnson, 140 

Ulysses  S.  Grant, 142 

Robert  E.  Lee, 162 

John  Paul  Jones 175 

David  D.  Porter, 184 

James  G.  Garfield  at  age  of  Sixteen,  .     .    192 

Chester  A.  Arthur 196 

Benjamin  Harrison, .201 

Grover  Cleveland, .  205 

John  Sherman, 209 

Thos.  B.  Reed, .     .     .212 

Wm.  B.  Allison, 217 

Henry  M.  Teller 220 

McKinley  and  His  Mother  (lithograph),   223 

Wm.  McKinley,  Jr. "!     .     .  224 

Chauncey  M.  Depew, 227 

Wm.  Jennings  Bryan, 230 

Wm.  T.  Sampson, 233 

George  Dewey, ,     ,     ,     ,  233 


John  Crittenden  Watson 233 

Winfield  Scott  Schley, 233 

Nelson  A.  Miles, 241 

Wesley  Merritt >  241 

Fitzhugh  Lee, .     .  241 

Wm.  R.  Shafter, 241 

Wm.  R.  Day, .  252 

Mrs.  James  Madison, 269 

Dolly  Madison  Saving  the  Declaration 

of  Independence  (lithograph),    .     .     .  273 

Sarah   Johnson,  Lincoln's   Step-mother,  279 

Stonewall  Jackson 286 

Harriett  Beecher  Stowe, 292 

John  Brown, 298 

Dorothea  Lynde   Dix 303 

Lucretia  Mott, *    .     .     .312 

Mother  of  President  Garfield,  .     .     .      .319 

Louisa  May  Alcott, 333 

Julia  Dent  Grant, 334 

Susan  B.  Anthony  at  Thirty-six,   .     .     .  344 

Susan  B.  Anthony  at  P"ifty-six,      .     .     .  347 

Susan  B.  Anthony  at  Seventy-six,     .     .  348 

Belva  A.  Lockwood, 348 

Frances  E.  Willard 348 

Mary  A.  Livermore, 348 

Julia  Ward  Howe 348 

Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton, 348 

Anna  Dickinson, 348 

Julia  Ward  Howe, 350 

Mother  of  President  McKinley,     .     .     .  363 

Mrs.  Ballington  Booth 372 

Commander  Ballington  Booth,     .     .     .  374 

Meniorial  Picture  of  F.  E.  Willard(litho.),  397 


.)^» 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  MOTHER. 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON, 

KATHER   AND    KOUNDER   OK  THE   REPUBLIC, 


AMONG  the  multitude  who  in  different 
lands  and  times  have  won  fame  in  vary 
ing  degrees,  a  few  stand  out  so  distinct 
so  far  above  the  rest,  that  they  mark  the 
eras  of  the  world's  progress.  By  them 
we  measure  our  growth  ;  by  them  we 
test  our  advance  or  decline.  We  no 
longer  judge  them,  but  rather  judge 
ourselves  by  them,  by  the  extent  to 
which  we  can  appreciate  and  under- 
stand them.  An  age  in  which  they  are 
honored  is  glorious ;  a  generation  by 
which  they  are  not  esteemed  is  con 
temptible.  Among  the  few  thus  truly 
great  is  Washington.  A  thousand  dmes 
has  the  story  of  his  noble  life  been  told  ; 
yet  never  were  men  so  eager  to  hear  it 
as  now.  His  character  has  endured 
every  test;  his  f?me  is  secure.  "It  will 
be.  the  duty  of  the  historian  in  all  ages," 
says  Lord  Brougham,  "to  omit  no  occa- 
sion of  commemorating  this  illustrious 
man  ;  •.  .  .  and  until  time  shall  be  no 
more  will  a  test  of  the  progress  which 
our  race  has  made  in  wisdon;  and  virtue 
be  derived  from  the  veneradon  paid  to  the  immortal  name  of  Washington." 

Two  centuries  ago  Virginia  was  almost  an  unexplored  wilderness  ;  but  the 
climate,  the  soil,  the  rivers,  bays,  mountains,  valleys,  all  combined  to  render  it 
one  of  the  most  attractive  spots  upon  our  globe.  Two  young  brothers.  Law- 
recice  and  John  Washington,  were  lured  by  these  attractions  to  abandon  their 
home  in  England,  and  seek  their  fortunes  in  this  new  worid.     They  were  both 

17 


A     VIKGINIA   PLANTATION   GATEWAY. 


i8  GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

g-entlemen.     Lawrence  was  a  fine  scholar,  a  graduate  of  Oxford  ;  John  was  an 
accomplished  man  of  business. 

The  two  brothers  had  purchased  a  large  tract  of  land  about  fifty  miles 
above  the  mouth  of  the  Potomac,  and  on  its  western  banks.  John  built  him  a 
house,  and  married  Anne  Pope.  Augustine,  his  second  son,  inherited  the 
paternal  homestead.  Augustine's  first  wife,  Jane  Butler,  as  lovely  in  character 
as  she  was  beautiful  in  person,  died,  leaving  three  little  motherless  children 
The  disconsolate  father,  in  the  course  of  years,  found  another  mother  for  his 
bereaved  household. 

He  was  singularly  fortunate  in  his  choice.  Mary  Ball  was  everything  that 
husband  or  child  could  desire.  She  was  beautiful  in  person,  intelligent,  accom- 
plished, energetic  and  prudent,  and  a  warm  hearted  Christian.  Augustine  and 
Mary  were  married  on  the  6th  of  March,  1730.  On  the  2 2d  of  February,  1732, 
they  received  into  their  arms  their  first-born  child.  Little  did  they  dream,  as 
they  bore  their  babe  to  the  baptismal  font  and  called  him  George  Washington, 
that  that  name  was  to  become  one  of  the  most  memorable  in  the  annals  of 
time, 

BOYHOOD    DAYS. 

From  earliest  childhood  George  developed  a  very  noble  character.  He  had 
a  vigorous  constitution,  a  fine  form,  and  great  bodily  strength.  In  childhood  he 
was  noted  for  frankness,  fearlessness,  and  moral  courage  ;  and  yet  far  removed 
from  manifesting  a  quarrelsome  spirit.  He  never  tyrannized  over  others  ;  and 
none  were  found  to  attempt  to  tyrannize  over  him. 

After  twelve  happy  years  of  union  with  Mary  Ball,  when  George  was  but 
ten  years  of  age,  Augustine  Washington  died,  leaving  George  and  five  other 
children  fatherless.  The  mother  was  equal  to  the  task  thus  imposed  upon  her. 
The  confidence  of  her  husband  in  her  judgment  and  maternal  love  is  indicated 
by  the  fact  that  he  left  the  income  of  the  entire  property  to  her  until  her  children 
should  respectively  coiTie  of  age.  Nobly  she  discharged  the  task.  A  nation's 
homage  gathers  around  the  memory  of  the  mother  of  Washington.  Life's 
severe  discipline  developed  a  character  simple,  sincere,  grave,  cheered  with 
earnest  and  unostentatious  piety.  Her  well-balanced  mind  gave  her  great  influ- 
ence over  her  son,  which  she  retained  until  the  hour  of  her  death. 

Mrs.  Alexander  Hamilton  tells  the  story  that,  when  George  Washington 
was  in  the  meridian  of  his  fame,  a  brilliant  party  was  given  in  his  honor  at 
Fredericksburg,  Va.  When  the  church-bell  rang  the  hour  of  nine,  his  mother 
rose  and  said,  "  Come,  George,  it  is  nine  o'clock  :  it  is  time  for  us  to  go  home." 
George,  like  a  dutiful  son,  offered  her  his  arm,  and  they  retired.  Mrs.  Hamil- 
ton admits,  however,  that  after  Washington  had  seen  his  mother  safely  home 
he  returned  to  the  party. 

At  sixteen  years  of  age  George,  then  a  man  in  character,  and  almost  a  man 


LIFE  IN  THE  WILDERNESS.  19 

in  stature,  left  school.  He  excelled  in  mathematical  studies,  and  had  become 
familiar  with  the  principles  of  geometry  and  trigonometry  and  of  practical  sur- 
veying. In  was  then  his  intention  to  become  a  civil  engineer.  At  that  time,  in 
this  new  and  rapidly-growing  country,  there  was  great  demand  for  such  services, 
and  the  employment  was  very  lucrative.  He  had  formed  his  character  upon  the 
right  model.  Everything  he  did  he  did  well.  If  he  wrote  a  letter,  every  word 
was  as  plain  as  print,  with  spelling,  capitals,  punctuation,  all  correct.  His  dia 
grams  and  tables  were  never  scribbled  off,  but  all  executed  with  great  beauty. 
These  excellent  habits,  thus  early  formed,  were  retained  through  life. 

Upon  leaving  school  George  went  to  spend  a  little  time  with  his  elder 
brother,  Lawrence,  at  Mount  Vernon.  Then,  as  now,  that  was  an  enchanting 
spot.  The  house,  situated  upon  a  swell  of  land,  commanded  an  extensive  view 
of  the  Potomac  and  of  the  surrounding  country.  It  was  nearly  one  hundred 
miles  above  the  home  of  George.  Lord  Fairfax,  a  man  of  large  fortune  and 
romantic  tastes,  had  been  lured  by  the  charms  of  this  delightful  region  to  pur 
chase  a  vast  territory,  which  extended  far  away,  over  the  Blue  Mountains.  It 
was  a  property  embracing  rivers  and  mountains,  forests  and  prairies,  and  wealth 
unexplored.  Lord  Fairfax  was  charmed  with  young  Washington,  his  frankness, 
his  intelligence,  his  manliness,  his  gentlemanly  bearing, —  a  boy  in  years,  a  man 
in  maturity  of  wisdom  and  character ;  and  he  engaged  this  lad,  then  but  one 
month  over  sixteen  years  of  age,  to  explore  and  survey  these  pathless  wilds,  a 
large  portion  of  which  was  then  ranged  only  by  wild  beasts  and  savage  men.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  a  lad  of  his  age  ever  before  undertook  a  task  so  ardu- 
ous. With  a  few  attendants,  the  boy  entered  the  wilderness.  We  have  some 
extracts  from  the  journal  which  he  kept,  which  give  us  a  vivid  idea  of  the  life  he 
then  led.     Under  date  of  March  15,  1748,  he  writes: — 

"  Worked  hard  till  night,  and  then  returned.  After  supper,  we  were  lighted 
into  a  room  ;  and  I,  not  being  so  good  a  woodman  as  the  rest,  stripped  myself 
very  orderly,  and  went  into  the  bed,  as  they  call  it,  when,  to  my  surprise,  I  found 
it  to  be  nothing  but  a  Httle  straw  matted  together,  without  sheet  or  anything  else, 
but  only  one  threadbare  blanket,  with  double  its  weight  of  vermin.  I  was  glad 
to  get  up  and  put  on  my  clothes,  and  lie  as  my  companions  did.  Had  we  not 
been  very  tired,  I  am  sure  we  should  not  have  slept  much  that  night.  I  made  a 
promise  to  sleep  so  no  more  in  a  bed,  choosing  rather  to  sleep  in  the  open  air 
before  a  fire." 

On  the  2d  of  April  he  writes,  "A  blowing,  rainy  night.  Our  straw,  upon 
which  we  were  lying,  took  fire  ;  but  I  was  luckily  preserved  by  one  of  our  men 
awaking  when  it  was  in  a  flame.     We  have  run  off  four  lots  this  day." 

George  returned  from  this  tramp  with  all  his  energies  consolidated  by  toil, 
peril,  and  hardship.  Though  but  seventeen  years  of  age,  he  was  a  responsible, 
self-reliant  man.     The  State  of  Virginia  now  employed  him  as  public  surveyor. 


WASHINGTON'S  RECEPTION  AT  TRENTON 


A  PERILOUS  JOURNEY.  21 

For  three  years  he  was  engaged  in  these  laborious  ckities,  which  Introduced  him 
to  scenes  of  romance  and  adventure.  Though  he  often,  during  these  three  years, 
visited  his  mother,  his  headquarters  were  with  his  brother  at  Mount  Vernon,  as 
this  was  much  nearer.  Lord  Fairfax,  who,  it  is  said,  was  the  victim  of  a  love 
disappointment,  had  built  him  a  substantial  stone  mansion  in  the  valley  beyond 
the  Blue  Ridge,  where  he  was  living  in  a  sort  of  baronial  splendor,  and  where 
George  was  an  ever  welcome  guest. 

MISSION   TO   THE    FRENCH    COMMANDER. 

Having  performed  his  duty  as  surveyor  so  well,  he  was  chosen  adjutant- 
general,  with  the  rank  of  major,  over  a  portion  of  the  militia  whose  duty  it  was 
to  repel  the  encroachments  of  the  French  and  Indians.  In  the  meantime,  how- 
ever, he  was  absent  four  months  in  Barbadoes  with  a  sick  brother.  The  next 
year,  being  then  twenty-one  years  of  age,  he  was  sent  as  commissioner  by 
Governor  Dinwiddle  to  demand  of  the  French  commander  why  he  had  invaded 
the  king's  colonies.  For  seven  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  more  than  half  of  the 
distance  through  an  unbroken  wilderness,  he  made  his  way,  accompanied  by 
only  seven  persons  ;  and  after  forty-one  days  of  toil,  in  the  middle  of  Decem- 
ber he  reached  his  destination.  Having  concluded  his  mission,  he  set  out  in  the 
dead  of  winter  to  retrace  his  dreary  route.  The  horses  after  a  while  gave  out 
and  the  drivers  were  left  to  take  care  of  them,  while  he  and  one  companion 
pushed  on  alone,  on  foot,  through  the  wilderness.  Traveling  in  this  manner, 
they  came  upon  an  Indian,  who,  under  the  pretence  of  acting  as  guide,  led  them 
off  their  route,  and  then  shot  at  them.  Sparing  his  life,  contrary  to  the  wishes 
of  his  friend,  Washington  soon  got  rid  of  him,  and  walked  all  night  to  escape 
pursuit.  Coming  to  the  Alleghany  river,  they  found  it  only  partly  frozen  over, 
and  here  the  two  friends  lay  down  upon  the  bank  in  the  cold  snow,  with 
nothing  but  their  blankets  over  them,  and  thus,  weary  and  hungry,  passed  the 
dreary  night.  The  next  morning  they  set  to  work  with  a  single  hatchet  to  build 
a  raft.  They  worked  all  day  long  on  the  frail  thing,  and  just  after  sunset  suc- 
ceeded In  launching  it  on  the  turbulent  stream.  When  nearly  half  across,  huge 
fragments  of  floating  ice  came  driving  down  the  current,  and,  jamming  against 
the  crazy  fabric,  jerked  them  overboard,  into  ten  feet  of  water.  The  two 
adventurers  swam  and  waded  to  an  Island,  where,  amid  frost  and  snow,  wet  to 
the  skin,  without  a  blanket  to  cover  them  or  a  spark  of  fire,  with  their  clothes 
frozen  stiff  upon  their  backs,  they  passed  the  long,  wintry  night.  They  were 
now  without  the  means  of  reaching  either  shore  ;  but  the  biting  cold  that  be- 
numbed their  limbs  froze  also  the  river,  so  that  when  morning  dawned  it  was 
bridged  over  with  Ice  between  them  and  the  shore.  Escaping  the  shot  of  the 
Indian,  the  dangers  of  the  forest,  and  death  by  cold,  they  at  length,  after  an 
absence  of  eleven  weeks,  arrived  safely  at  home. 

2  S&  D 


22  GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

Washington's  journal  of  this  tour  was  pubHshed  in  London,  and  attracted 
much  attention,  as  it  contained  conckisive  proof  that  the  French  would  resist 
any  attempts  of  the  English  to  establish  their  settlements  upon  the  Ohio.  The 
Legislature  of  Virginia  was  in  session  at  Williamsburg  when  Washington 
returned.  Modestly,  and  unconscious  that  he  would  attract  any  attention,  he 
went  into  the  gallery  to  observe  the  proceedings.  The  Speaker  chanced  to  see 
him,  and,  rising,  proposed  that 

"  The  thanks  of  this  house  be  given  to  Major  Washington,  who  now  sits  in 
the  gallery,  for  the  gallant  manner  in  which  he  has  executed  the  important  trust 
lately  reposed  in  him  by  his  excellency  the  governor." 

Every  member  of  the  house  rose  to  his  feet ;  and  Washington  was  greeted 
with  a  simultaneous  and  enthusiastic  burst  of  applause.  Embarrassed  by  the 
unexpected  honor,  and  unaccustomed  to  public  speaking,  the  young  hero  en- 
deavored in  vain  to  give  utterance  to  his  thanks.  Out  of  this  painful  dilemma 
the  eloquent  Speaker  helped  him  as  generously  as  he  had  helped  him  into  it.  "  Sit 
down,  Mr.  Washington,"  said  he,  in  his  most  courteous  manner,  "your  modesty 
equals  your  valor,  and  that  surpasses  the  power  of  any  language  that  I  possess." 
Nothing  could  be  more  elegant  or  skilful  than  this  double  stroke,  which  not  only 
relieved  Washington,  but  paid  him  at  the  same  time  the  highest  compliment  that 
could  be  bestowed. 

braddock's  expedition. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1755  General  Braddock,  a  self-conceited,  stubborn 
man,  landed  in  Virginia  with  two  regiments  of  regular  troops  from  Great 
Britain.  Arrogant  in  the  pride  of  his  technical  military  education,  he  despised 
alike  Frenchmen,  Indians,  and  colonists.  With  his  force,  Braddock  started  on 
a  march  through  the  wilderness  for  the  reduction  of  Fort  Duquesne.  Washing- 
ton accompanied  him  as  volunteer  aid.  In  a  straggling  line  four  miles  in  length, 
this  army  of  two  thousand  men,  totally  unacquainted  with  Indian  warfare,  and 
thoroughly  despising  such  barbaric  foes,  commenced  its  march,  with  ponderous 
artillery  and  a  cumbrous  baggage-train,  through  the  forest,  for  the  distant  junc- 
tion of  the  Alleghany  and  the  Monongahela.  Washington,  who  well  knew  the 
foe  they  were  to  encounter,  was  alarmed  at  this  recklessness,  and  urged  greater 
caution.  The  regular  British  general  was  not  to  be  taught  the  art  of  war  by  a 
provincial  colonel,  who  had  never  even  seen  the  inside  of  a  military  school.  Sue 
cessfully  they  had  threaded  the  wilderness,  and  on  a  beautiful  summer's  day  they 
were  exultingly  marching  along  the  banks  of  the  Monongahela,  when  they 
entered  a  defile  of  picturesque  beauty. 

Suddenly,  like  the  burst  of  thunder  from  the  cloudless  heavens,  came  the 
crash  of  musketry,  and  a  tempest  of  lead  swept  through  their  ranks.  Crash 
followed  crash  in  quick  succession,  before,  behind,  on  the  right,  on  the  left.  Nc 
foe  was  to  be  seen  ;  yet  every  bullet  accomplished  its  mission.     The  ground  was 


BRADDOCK'S  DEFEAT.  23 

soon  covered  with  the  dead  and  wounded.  Amazement  and  consternation  ran 
through  the  ranks.  An  unseen  foe  was  assaihnor  them.  Braddock  stood  his 
ground  with  bull-dog  courage,  until  hq  fell,  pierced  by  a  bullet.  When  nearly 
half  of  the  army  were  slain,  the  remnant  broke  in  wild  disorder  and  fled.  The 
ambush  was  entirely  successful.  Six  hundred  of  these  unseen  assailants  were 
Indians.  They  made  the  forest  ring  with  their  derision  in  scorn  of  the  folly  of 
Braddock. 

Washington,  through  this  awful  scene,  which  he  had  been  constantly  antici- 
pating, was  perfectly  collected,  and,  with  the  coolest  courage,  did  everything 
which  human  sagacity  could  do  to  retrieve  the  disaster.  Two  horses  were  shot 
beneath  him,  and  four  bullets  passed  through  his  coat.  Eight  hundred  of  Brad- 
dock's  army,  including  most  of  the  officers,  were  either  dead  or  wounded. 
Washington  rallied  around  him  the  few  provincials,  upon  whom  Braddock  had 
looked  with  contempt.  Each  man  instantly  placed  himself  behind  a  tree, 
accordinor  to  the  necessities  of  forest  warfare.  As  the  Indians  burst  from  their 
ambush,  the  unerring  fire  of  the  provincials  checked  them  and  drove  them  back. 
But  for  this  the  army  would  have  been  utterly  destroyed.  All  Washington's 
endeavors  to  rally  the  British  regulars  were  unavailing.  Indignantly  he  writes, 
"They  ran  like  sheep  before  the  hounds."  Panic-stricken,  abandoning  artillery 
and  baggage,  they  continued  their  tumultuous  retreat  to  the  Atlantic  coast.  The 
provincials,  in  orderly  march,  protected  them  from  pursuit.  Braddock's  defeat 
rang  through  the  land  as  Washington's  victory.  The  provincials,  who,  submit- 
ting to  military  authority,  had  allowed  themselves  to  be  led  into  this  valley  of 
death,  proclaimed  far  and  wide  the  precautions  which  Washington  had  urged, 
and  the  heroism  with  which  he  had  rescued  the  remnant  of  the  army. 

The  French  made  no  attempt  to  pursue  their  advantage,  but  quietly  retired 
to  Fort  Duquesne,  there  to  await  another  assault,  should  the  English  decide  to 
make  one.  A  force  of  about  seven  hundred  men  was  raised,  and  placed  under 
the  command  of  Washington,  to  protect  the  scattered  villages  and  dwellings  of 
this  vast  frontier.  For  three  years  Washington  gave  all  his  energies  to  this 
arduous  enterprise.  It  would  require  a  volume  to  record  the  awful  scenes 
through  which  he  passed  during  these  three  years. 

In  November,  1758,  Fort  Duquesne  was  wrested  from  the  French,  and  the 
valley  of  the  Ohio  passed  from  their  control  forever.  The  Canadas  soon  after 
surrendered  to  Wolfe,  and  English  supremacy  was  established  upon  this  conti- 
nent without  a  rival. 

Washington  was  now  twenty-six  years  of  age.  The  beautiful  estate  of 
Mount  Vernon  had  descended  to  him  by  inheritance.  On  the  6th  of  January. 
1759,  he  married  Mrs.  Martha  Custis,  a  lady  of  great  worth  and  beauty.  Wash- 
ington was  already  wealthy ;  and  his  wife  brought  with  her,  as  her  dower,  a 
fortune  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.     After  the  tumultuous  scenes  of  his 


BARON  STHUBEN.      GOV.  ARTHUR  ST    CLAIR.         SEC'y  SAMUEL  A.  GTIS.  ROGER  SHERMAN.  GOV.  GBORGE  CLINTON. 

CHANCELLOR  ROBERT  R.   LIVINGSTON.  GEORGE  WASHINGTON.  GEN'l  HENRV  KNOX. 


WASHINGTON   TAKING   THE   OATH    AS  PRESIDENT, 

APRIL   30,    1789,   ON  THE  SITE  OF  THE   PRESENT  TREASURY   BUILDING,    WALL   STREET,   NEW   YORK   CITY. 

Virginia  gave  us  this  imperial  man, 

Cast  in  the  massive  mould 

Of  those  high-statured  ages  old 

Which  into  grander  forms  our  mortal  metal  ran; 


Mother  of  States  and  imdiminished  men, 
Thou  gavest  us  a  Country,  giving  him. 

— James  Russell  Lowell. 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WAR.  25 

youth,  he  retired  with  his  bride  and  her  two  children   to  the  lovely  retreat  of 
Mount  Vernon,  where  he   spent  fifteen  years  of  almost   unalloyed  happiness 
He  enlarged  the  mansion,  embellished  the  grounds,  and  by  purchase  made  very 
considerable  additions  to  his  lar^g^e  estate. 

OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 

During  these  serene  years  of  peace  and  prosperity  an  appalling  storm  was 
gathering,  which  soon  burst  with  fearful  desolation  over  all  the  colonies.  The 
British  ministry,  denying  the  colonists  the  rights  of  British  subjects,  insisted 
upon  exercising  the  despotic  power  of  imposing  taxes  upon  the  colonists,  while 
withholding  the  right  of  representation.  All  American  remonstrances  were 
thrown  back  with  scorn.  Troops  were  sent  to  enforce  obedience  to  the  man 
dates  of  the  British  Crown.  The  Americans  sprang  to  arms,  called  a  Congress, 
and  chose  Georo-e  Washino-ton  commander-in-cliief. 

To  the  Congress  which  elected  him  he  replied :  "I  beg  leave  to  assure  the 
Congress  that,  as  no  pecuniary  consideration  could  have  tempted  me  to  accept 
this  arduous  employment  at  the  expense  of  my  domestic  ease  and  happiness, 
I  do  not  wish  to  make  any  profit  from  it.  I  will  keep  an  exact  account  of  my 
expenses.     Those,  I  doubt  not,  they  will  discharge.     That  is  all  I  desire." 

To  his  wife,  the  object  of  his  most  tender  affection,  he  wrote  that  it  was  his 
greatest  afiliction  to  be  separated  from  her,  but  that  duty  called,  and  he  must 
obey.  He  said  that  he  could  not  decline  the  appointment  without  dishonoring 
his  name,  and  sinkiha-  himself  even  in  her  esteem. 

On  the  2d  of  July  Washington  arrived  in  Cambridge  and  took  command 
of  the  army.  The  ceremony  took  place  under  the  elm-tree  which  still  stands 
immortalized  by  the  event.  General  Gage  was  commander  of  the  British  forces. 
Twelve  thousand  British  regulars  were  intrenched  on  Bunker's  Hill  and  in  the 
streets  of  Boston.  About  fifteen  thousand  provincial  militia,  wretchedly  armed 
and  without  any  discipline,  occupied  a  line  nearly  twelve  miles  in  extent,  en» 
circling,  on  the  land  side,  Charlestown  and  Boston.  The  British  war-ships  held 
undisputed  possession  of  the  harbor. 

At  length,  in  March,  1776,  after  months  of  toil  and  surmounting  difficulties 
more  than  can  be  enumerated,  Washington  was  prepared  for  decisive  action 
In  a  dark  and  stormy  night  he  opened  upon  the  foe  in  the  city,  from  his  encir- 
cling lines,  as  fierce  a  bombardment  as  his  means  would  allow.  Under  cover  of 
this  roar  of  the  batteries  and  the  midnight  storm,  he  dispatched  a  large  force  o' 
picked  troops,  with  the  utmost  secrecy,  to  take  possession  of  the  Heights  of 
Dorchester.  There,  during  the  hours  of  the  night,  the  soldiers  worked  with  the 
utmost  diligence  in  throwing  up  breastworks  which  would  protect  them  from  the 
broadsides  of  the  English  fleet.  Having  established  his  batteries  upon  those 
heights,  he  commanded  the  harbor 


26  GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

In  the  early  dawn  of  the  morning,  the  British  Admiral  saw,  to  his  con- 
sternation, that  a  fort  bristling  with  cannon  had  sprung  up  during  the  night 
almost  over  his  head.  He  immediately  opened  upon  the  works  the  broadsides 
of  all  his  ships  ;  but  the  Americans,  defiant  of  the  storm  of  iron  which  fell 
around  them,  continued  to  pile  their  sand-bags  and  to  ply  their  shovels,  until 
they  had  thrown  up  ramparts  so  strong  that  no  cannonade  could  injure  them. 
The  British  fleet  was  now  at  the  mercy  of  Washington's  batteries.  In  a  spirit 
almost  of  desperation,  the  Admiral  ordered  three  thousand  men  in  boats  to  land 
and  take  the  heights  at  every  hazard.  But  a  great  storm  came  to  the  aid  of 
the  colonists.  The  gale  increased  to  such  fury  that  not  a  boat  could  be  launched. 
Before  another  day  and  night  had  passed  the  redoubt  was  made  so  strong  that 
it  could  defy  any  attack. 

It  was  the  morning  of  the  17th  of  March,  1776.  The  storm  had  passed 
away.  The  blue  sky  overarched  the  beleaguered  city  and  the  encamping  armies. 
Washington  sat  upon  his  horse,  serene  and  majestic,  and  contemplated  in  silent 
triumph,  from  the  Heights  of  Dorchester,  the  evacuation  of  Boston.  The 
whole  British  army  was  crowded  on  board  the  ships.  A  fresh  breeze  from  the 
west  filled  their  sails  ;  and  the  hostile  armament,  before  the  sun  went  down,  had 
disappeared  beyond  the  distant  horizon.  It  was  a  glorious  victory.  Such 
another  case,  perhaps,  history  does  not  record.  Washington,  zvitJiout  ammuni- 
tion, had  maintained  his  post  for  six  months  within  musket-shot  of  a  powerful 
British  army.  During  this  time  he  had  disbanded  the  small  force  of  raw  militia 
he  at  first  had  with  him,  and  had  recruited  another  army ;  and  had  then  driven 
the  enemy  into  his  ships,  and  out  into  the  sea. 

The  latter  part  of  June,  just  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  two 
large  British  fleets,  one  from  Halifax  and  the  other  direct  from  England,  met  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Bay  of  New  York,  and,  disembarking  a  powerful  army,  took 
possession  of  Staten  Island.  Washington  had  assembled  all  his  available  mili- 
tary force  to  resist  their  advances.  The  British  Government  regarded  the  leaders 
of  the  armies,  and  their  supporters  in  Congress,  as  felons,  doomed  to  the  scaffold. 
They  refused,  consequently,  to  recognize  any  titles  conferred  by  Congress, 

By  the  middle  of  August  the  British  had  assembled,  on  Staten  island  and 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson  River,  a  force  of  nearly  thirty  thousand  soldiers, 
with  a  numerous  and  well-equipped  fleet.  To  oppose  them  Washington  had 
about  twelve  thousand  men,  poorly  armed,  and  quite  unaccustomed  to  military 
discipline  and  the  hardships  of  the  camp.  A  few  regiments  of  American  troops, 
about  five  thousand  in  number,  were  gathered  near  Brooklyn.  A  few  thousand 
more  were  stationed  at  other  points  on  Long  Island.  The  English  landed  with 
out  opposition,  fifteen  thousand  strong,  and  made  a  combined  assault  upon  the 
Americans.  The  battle  was  short,  but  bloody.  The  Americans,  overpowered 
sullenly  retired,  leaving  fifteen  hundred  of  their  number  either  dead  or  in  the 


A  CAMPAIGN  OF  RETREATS.  27 

hands  of  the  EngHsh.  A  vastly  superior  force  of  well-trained  British  troops, 
flushed  with  victory,  pressed  upon  the  rear  of  the  dispirited  colonists.  Theii 
situation  seemed  desperate. 

Again  Providence  came  to  our  aid.     The  wind  died  away  to  a  perfect  calm 
so  that  the  British  fleet  could  not  move.     A  dense  fosf  was  rolled  in  from  thf 
ocean.     The  Americans,  familiar  with  every  foot  of  the  ground,  improved  th 
propitious   moments.     Boats  were  rapidly  collected  ;  and,  in  the  few  hours  o 
that  black  night,  nine  thousand  men,  with  nearly  all  their  artillery  and  mil!tar^ 
stores,  were  safely  landed  in  New  York.     The  transportation  was  conducted  sc 
secretly  that,  though  the  Americans  could  hear  the  English  at  work  with  their 
pickaxes,  the  last  boat  had  left  the  Long  Island  shore  ere  the  retreat  was  sus- 
pected. 

The  American  army  was  now  in  a  deplorable  condition.  It  had  neither  arms, 
ammunition,  nor  food.  The  soldiers  were  unpaid,  almost  mutinous,  and  in  rags. 
There  were  thousands  in  the  vicinity  of  New  York  who  were  in  sympathy  with 
the  British.  Nearly  all  the  Government  officials  and  their  friends  were  on  that 
side.  A  conspiracy  was  formed,  in  which  a  part  of  Washington's  own  guard 
was  implicated,  to  seize  him,  and  deliver  him  to  that  ignominious  death  to  which 
the  British  Crown  had  doomed  him. 

Washington  was  equal  to  the  crisis.  He  saw  that  the  only  hope  was  to  be 
found  in  avoiding  an  engagement,  and  in  wearing  out  the  resources  of  the  enemy 
in  protracted  campaigns.  He  slowly  retired  from  New  York  to  the  Heights  of 
Harlem,  with  sleepless  vigilance  watching  every  movement  of  the  foe,  that  he 
might  take  advantage  of  the  slightest  indiscretion.  Here  he  threw  up  breast- 
works, which  the  enemy  did  not  venture  to  attack.  The  British  troops  ascended 
the  Hudson  and  East  River  to  assail  Washington  in  his  rear.  A  weary  cam- 
paign of  marches  and  counter-marches  ensued,  in  which  Washington,  v/ith 
scarcely  a  shadow  of  an  army,  sustained,  in  the  midst  of  a  constant  succession 
of  disasters,  the  apparently  hopeless  fortunes  of  his  country.  At  one  time 
General  Reed  in  anguish  exclaimed, — 

"  My  God  !  General  Washington,  how  long  shall  we  fly  ?" 

Serenely  Washington  replied,  "  We  shall  retreat,  if  necessary,  over  every 
river  of  our  country,  and  then  over  the  mountains,  where  I  will  make  a  last  stand 
against  our  enemies." 

THE    NEW   JERSEY    CAMPAIGN. 

Washington  crossed  the  Hudson  into  the  Jerseys.  The  British  pursued 
him.  With  consummate  skill,  he  baffled  all  the  efforts  of  the  foe.  W^ith  an  army 
reduced  to  a  freezing,  starving  band  of  but  three  thousand  men,  he  retreated  to 
Trenton.  The  British  pressed  exultandy  on,  deeming  the  conflict  ended  and  the 
Revolution  crushed.  It  was  December.  The  foe  tracked  the  patriots  by  the 
blood  of  their  lacerated  feet  on  the  frozen  ground.     With  great  difficulty  Wash- 


< 

to       K 

H     « 
O    (^ 

3 
< 


THE  SURPRISE  AT  TRENTON.  29 

ington  succeeded  in  crossing  the  Delaware  in  boats,  just  as  the  British  army 
arrived  upon  the  banks  of  the  stream.  They  needed  but  to  cross  the  river  to 
take  possession  of  Philadelphia.  The  ice  was  so  rapidly  forming  that  they 
would  soon  be  able  to  pass  at  any  point  without  obstruction.  The  enemy,  with 
apparently  nothing  to  fear,  relaxed  his  vigilance. 

The  night  of  December  25,  1776,  was  very  dark  and  intensely  cold.  A 
storm  of  wind  and  snow  raged  violently.  The  British,  considering  the  patriots 
utterly  dispersed,  and  that  a  broad,  icy  river  flowed  between  them  and  the 
retreating  American  bands,  gathered  around  the  firesides.  In  the  darkness  of 
that  wintry  night,  and  amidst  the  conflict  of  its  elements,  Washington  re- 
embarked  his  troops  to  recross  the  Delaware.  Forcing  his  boats  through  the 
floating  blocks  of  ice,  he  succeeded,  before  daylight  the  next  morning,  in  land- 
ing upon  the  opposite  shore  twenty-four  hundred  men  and  twenty  pieces  of 
cannon.  The  British  were  carelessly  dispersed,  not  dreaming  of  danger.  The 
Americans  sprang  upon  the  first  body  of  the  foe  they  met,  and,  after  a  short 
but  bloody  strife,  scattered  them,  capturing  a  thousand  prisoners  and  six  cannon. 
The  British  retreated  to  Princeton,  and  Washington  took  possession  of  Trenton. 
Soon  Lord  Cornwallis,  having  received  large  reinforcements,  marched  upon 
Trenton,  confident  that  General  Washington  could  no  longer  escape  them.  At 
the  close  of  a  bleak  winter  day  his  army  appeared  before  the  lines  which 
Washington  had  thrown  up  around  Trenton.  "To-morrow,"  he  said,  "at  the 
break  of  day,  I  will  attack  them.  The  rising  sun  shall  see  the  end  of  the 
rebellion." 

The  sun  rose  the  next  morning^,  cold  but  cloudless.  In  the  nio-ht  the 
American  army  had  vanished.  Replenishing  his  camp-fires  to  deceive  the 
enemy,  at  midnight,  with  the  utmost  precaution  and  precipitation,  he  evacuated 
his  camp,  and,  by  a  circuitous  route,  fell  upon  the  rear  of  the  English  at  Prince- 
ton. A  hundred  and  sixty  of  the  British  were  shot  down,  and  three  hundred 
were  taken  prisoners. 

Cheered  by  this  success,  Washington  led  his  handful  of  troops  to  the 
Heights  of  Morristown.  There  he  intrenched  them  for  winter-quarters.  He, 
however,  sent  out  frequent  detachments,  which  so  harassed  the  enemy  that,  in  a 
short  time,  New  Jersey  was  delivered  from  their  presence.  The  country  was 
animated  by  these  achievements,  and  Congress  roused  itself  to  new  energies. 

During  the  remainder  of  the  winter  vigorous  efforts  were  made  in  prepara- 
tion for  the  opening  of  the  spring  campaign.  The  different  States  sent  troops 
to  join  the  army  at  Morristown.  The  people  of  France,  in  sympathy  with  our' 
cause,  sent  two  vessels.  The  Marquis  de  Lafayette  left  his  mansion  of  opulence, 
and  his  youthful  bride,  to  peril  his  life  in  the  cause  of  American  independence. 
The  British,  harassed  by  Washington's  sleepless  vigilance,  yet  unable  to  compef 
him  or  to  lure  him  into  a  general  eng^agement,  left  New  York  in  a  fleet,  with 


30 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON. 


eighteen  thousand  soldiers,  to  capture  Philadelphia.  They  landed  near  Elkton 
at  the  head  of  Chesapeake  Bay.  Washington,  with  but  eleven  thousand  men, 
marched  to  encounter  them.  The  two  armies  met  on  the  banks  of  the  Brandy- 
wine.  A  bloody  battle  ensued.  Lafayette  was  wounded.  The  Americans, 
overpowered,  were  compelled  to  retreat.  Washington,  after  a  short  but  severe 
engagement  at  GermantcTwn,  retired,  and  the  British  took  possession  of  Phila- 
delphia. 

Congress  precipitately  adjourned  to  Lancaster,  and  thence  to  York. 
Winter  again  came.  The  British  were  comfortably  housed  in  Philadelphia. 
Washington  selected  Valley  Forge,  about  twenty  miles  from  Philadelphia,  as  his 
winter-quarters.     Eleven   thousand   men  here   passed  the  winter  of   1777  and 


OL-p/BIRrnl^(CH^M  MEETlMG  HOuSE 

USED      AJAMOSPlTAv 

1778.  It  was  a  period  of  great  discouragement  and  suffering.  The  army  was 
in  a  state  of  destitution,  which  Washington  did  not  dare  to  proclaim  abroad,  lest 
the  foe  should  rush  upon  him  in  his  helplessness. 

In  this  dark  hour  France  came  forward  to  our  aid  ;  recognizing  our  inde- 
pendence, entering  into  a  friendly  alliance  with  us,  and  sending  both  a  fleet  and 
an  army  to  our  support.  The  British  army  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
amounted  to  thirty  thousand  men.  The  whole  American  army  did  not  exceed 
fifteen  thousand.  But  the  British,  apprehensive  that  a  French  fleet  might  soon 
appear,  and  thus  endanger  the  troops  in  Philadelphia,  evacuated  the  city,  and 
the  troops  commenced  their  march  through  New  Jersey.  The  cold  of  winter 
had  given  place  to  the  heat  of  summer, 


LEE'S  TREACHERY.  31 

Washington  followed  close  in  the  rear  of  the  foe,  watching  for  a  chance  to 
strike.     The  28th  of  June,  1778,  was  a  day  of  intense  heat.     Not  a  breath  of 
air  was  stirring,   while    an  unclouded  sun    poured 
down  its  blistering  rays  upon  pursuers  and  pursued.  ,,/" 

The  British  troops  were  at  Monmouth.     The  march 
of  one  more  day  would  so  unite  them  with  the  army 

in    New    York    that  ■'^  :' 

they   would   be   safe 


WASHINGTON    RFPROVING   LEE  AT 
MONMOUTH. 

from  attack.  General  Lee,  with 
five  thousand  men,  was  in  the 
advance.  Washington  sent 
orders  to  him  immediately  to 
commence  the  onset,  with  the 
assurance  that  he  would  hasten 
to  his  support.  As  Washington  was  pressing  eagerly  forward,  to  his  inexpres- 
sible chagrin  he  met  General  Lee  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  in  full  retreat.     It 


32  GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 


is  said  that  Washington,  with  great  vehemence  of  manner  and  utterance,  cried 
out,  "General  Lee,  what  means  this  ill-timed  prudence?"  The  retreating 
General  threw  back  an  angry  retort.  But  it  was  no  time  for  altercation. 
Washington  turned  to  the  men.  They  greeted  him  with  cheers.  At  his  com- 
mand they  wheeled  about  and  charged  the  enemy.  A  sanguinary  battle 
ensued,  and  the  English  were  driven  from  the  field.  The  colonists  slept  upon 
their  arms,  prepared  to  renew  the  battle  in  the  morning.  When  the  morning 
dawned,  no  foe  was  to  be  seen.  The  British  had  retreated  in  the  night,  leaving 
three  hundred  of  their  dead  behind  them.     The  Americans  lost  but  sixty-nine. 

DARK    DAYS    OF    THE    WAR. 

Another  cold  and  cheerless  winter  came.  The  British  remained  within 
their  lines  at  New  York.  They  sent  agents,  however,  to  the  Six  Nations  of 
Indians,  to  arm  them  against  our  defenseless  frontier.  These  fierce  savages, 
accompanied  by  Tory  bands,  perpetrated  horrors  too  dreadful  for  recital.  The 
massacres,  of  Cherry  Valley  and  of  Wyoming  were  among  the  most  awful  trage- 
dies ever  witnessed  on  this  crlobe.  The  narrative  of  these  fiendish  deeds  sent  a 
thrill  of  horror  through  England  as  well  as  America.  Four  thousand  men  were 
sent  by  Washington  into  the  wilderness,  to  arrest,  if  possible,  these  massacres. 
The  savages  and  their  allies  were  driven  to  Niagara,  where  they  were  received 
into  an  English  fortress.  General  Clinton  commenced  a  vigorous  prosecution  of 
a  system  of  violence  and  plunder  upon  defenseless  towns  and  farm-houses.  The 
sky  was  reddened  with  wanton  conflagration.  Women  and  children  were  driven 
houseless  into  the  fields.  The  flourishing  towns  of  Fairfield  and  Norwalk,  in 
Connecticut,  were  reduced  to  ashes. 

While  the  enemy  was  thus  ravaging  that  defenseless  State,  Washington 
planned  an  expedition  against  Stony  Point,  on  the  Hudson,  which  was  held  by 
the  British.  General  Wayne  conducted  the  enterprise,  on  the  night  of  the  15th 
of  July,  with  great  gallantry  and  success.  Sixty-three  of  the  British  were  killed, 
five  hundred  and  forty-three  were  taken  prisoners,  and  all  the  military  stores  of  the 
fortress  captured.  During  this  summer  campaign  the  American  army  was  never 
sufficiently  strong  to  take  the  offensive.  It  was,  however,  incessantly  employed 
striking  blows  upon  the  English  wherever  the  eagle  eye  of  Washington  could 
discern  an  exposed  spot. 

The  winter  of  1779  set  in  early,  and  with  unusual  severity.  The  American 
army  was  in  such  a  starving  condition  that  Washington  was  compelled  to  make 
the  utmost  exertions  to  save  his  wasting  band  from  annihilation.  These  long 
years  of  war  and  woe  filled  many  even  of  the  most  sanguine  hearts  with  despair. 
Not  a  few  patriots  deemed  it  madness  for  the  colonies,  impoverished  as  they 
were,  any  longer  to  contend  against  the  richest  and  most  powerful  nation  upon 
the  globe.     General  Arnold,  who  was  at  this  time  in  command  9.«-  West  Ppint, 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  SOUTH.  33 

saw  no  hope  for  his  country.  Believing  the  ship  to  be  sinking,  he  turned  traitor, 
and  offered  to  sell  his  fortress  to  the  English.  The  treason  was  detected,  but 
the  traitor  escaped  ;  and  the  lamented  Andre,  who  had  been  lured  into  the 
position  of  a  spy,  became  the  necessary  victim  of  Arnold's  crime. 

Lord  Cornwallis  was  now,  with  a  well-provided  army  and  an  assisting  navy, 
overrunning  the  two  Carolinas.  General  Greene  was  sent,  with  all  the  force 
which  Washington  could  spare,  to  watch  and  harass  the  invaders,  and  to  furnish 
the  inhabitants  with  all  the  protection  in  his  power.  Lafayette  was  in  the 
'/icinity  of  New  York,  with  his  eagle  eye  fixed  upon  the  foe,  ready  to  pounce 
upon  any  detachment  which  presented  the  slightest  exposure.  Washington  was 
everywhere,  with  patriotism  which  never  flagged,  with  hope  which  never  failed, 
cheering  the  army,  animating  the  inhabitants,  rousing  Congress,  and  guidinp 
with  his  well-balanced  mind  both  military  and  civil  legislation.  Thus  the  dreary 
year  of  1780  lingered  away. 

As  the  spring  of  1781  opened,  the  war  was  renewed.  The  British  directed 
their  chief  attention  to  the  South,  which  was  far  weaker  than  the  North,  Rich- 
mond, in  Virginia,  was  laid  in  ashes  ;  and  a  general  system  of  devastation  and 
plunder  prevailed.  The  enemy  ascended  the  Chesapeake  and  the  Potomac 
with  armed  vessels.  They  landed  at  Mount  Vernon.  The  manager  of  the 
estate,  to  save  the  mansion  from  pillage  and  flames,  furnished  them  with  abun- 
dant supplies.     Washington  was  much  displeased.     He  wrote  to  his  agent : — 

"It  would  have  been  a  less  painful  circumstance  to  me  to  have  heard  that, 
in  consequence  of  your  non-compliance  with  their  request,  they  had  burned  my 
house  and  laid  the  plantation  in  ruins.  You  ought  to  have  considered  yourself 
as  my  representative,  and  should  have  reflected  on  the  bad  example  of  commu- 
nicating with  the  enemy,  and  making  a  voluntary  offer  of  refreshments  to  them, 
with  a  view  to  prevent  a  conflagration." 

Lord  Cornwallis  was  now  at  Yorktown,  in  Virginia,  but  a  few  miles  from 
Chesapeake  Bay.  There  was  no  force  in  his  vicinity  seriously  to  annoy  him. 
Washington  resolved,  in  conjunction  with  our  allies  from  France,  to  make  a 
bold  movement  for  his  capture.  An  army  of  six  thousand  men,  under  Count 
Rochambeau,  had  been  sent  by  France  to  aid  the  American  cause.  This  army 
with  the  French  fleet,  were  most  important  aids  to  Washington,  He  succeeded 
in  deceiving  the  English  into  the  belief  that  he  was  making  great  preparations 
for  the  siege  of  New  York.  Thus  they  were  prevented  from  rendering  any  aid 
to  Yorktown. 

By  rapid  marches  from  the  neighborhood  of  New  York  Washington  has- 
tened to  Virginia.  Early  in  September  Lord  Cornwallis,  as  he  arose  one  morn- 
ing, was  amazed  to  find  himself  surrounded  by  the  bayonets  and  batteries  of  the 
Americans.  At  about  the  same  hour  the  French  fleet  appeared,  in  invincible 
strength,  before  the  harbor.     Cornwallis  was  caught.     There  was  uo  escape  ; 


MEETING  OF  WA5HIWGT0W  AND  ROCHAJOSEAU. 


THE  TRIUMPH  AT  YORKTOWN.  35 

there  was  no  retreat.  Neither  by  land  nor  by  sea  could  he  obtain  any  supplies 
Shot  and  shell  soon  began  to  fall  thickly  into  his  lines.  Famine  stared  him  in 
the  face.  After  a  few  days  of  hopeless  conflict,  on  the  19th  of  October,  1781, 
he  was  compelled  to  surrender.  Seven  thousand  British  veterans  laid  down 
their  arms.  One  hundred  and  sixty  pieces  of  cannon,  with  corresponding  mih 
tary  stores,  graced  the  triumph. 

When  the  British  soldiers  were  marching  from  their  intrenchments  to  lay 
down  their  arms,  Washington  thus  addressed  his  troops :  "  My  brave  fellows, 
let  no  sensation  of  satisfaction  for  the  triumphs  you  have  gained  induce  you  to 
insult  your  fallen  enemy.  Let  no  shouting,  no  clamorous  huzzaing,  increase 
their  mortification.     Posterity  will  huzza  for  us." 

This  glorious  capture  roused  renewed  hope  and  vigor  all  over  the  country. 
The  joyful  tidings  reached  Philadelphia  at  midnight.  A  watchman  traversed  the 
streets,  shoutingf  at  intervals,  "Past  twelve  o'clock,  and  Cornwallis  is  taken'" 
Candles  were  lighted  ;  windows  thrown  up  ;  figures  in  night-robes  and  night-caps 
bent  eagerly  out  to  catch  the  thrilling  sound  ;  shouts  were  raised  ;  citizens  rushed 
into  the  streets,  half  clad, — they  wept;  they  laughed.  The  news  flew  upon  the 
wings  of  the  wind,  nobody  can  tell  how  ,  and  the  shout  of  an  enfranchised  people 
rose,  like  a  roar  of  thunder,  from  our  whole  land.  With  such  a  victory,  repub 
lican  America  would  never  again  yield  to  the  aristocratic  government  of  England 

Early  in  May,  1782,  the  British  Cabinet  opened  negotiations  for  peace. 
Hostilities  were,  by  each  party,  tacitly  laid  aside.  Negotiations  were  protracted 
in  Paris  during  the  summer  and  the  ensuing  winter.  Early  in  the  following 
spring  the  joyful  tidings  arrived  that  a  treaty  of  peace  had  been  signed  at  Paris. 
The  intelligence  was  communicated  to  the  American  army  on  the  19th  of  April, 
1783, — just  eight  years  from  the  day  when  the  conflict  was  commenced  on  the 
Common  at  Lexington. 

Late  in  November  the  British  evacuated  New  York,  entered  their  ships, 
and  sailed  for  their  distant  island.  Washington,  marching  from  West  Point, 
entered  the  city  as  our  vanquished  foes  departed.  America  was  free  and  inde- 
pendent.    Washington  was  the  savior  of  his  country. 

After  an  affecting  farewell  to  the  officers  of  the  army,  Washington  set  oul 
for  his  Virginia  home.  At  every  town  and  village  he  was  received  with  love  and 
gratitude.  At  Annapolis  he  met  the  Continental  Congress,  where  he  was  to 
resign  his  commission.  It  was  the  23d  of  December,  1783.  All  the  members 
of  Congress,  and  a  large  concourse  of  spectators,  were  present.  His  address 
closed  with  the  following  words  : — 

"  Having  now  finished  the  work  assigned  me,  I  retire  from  the  great  theatre 
of  action,  and  bidding  an  affectionate  farewell  to  this  august  body,  under  whose 
orders  I  have  so  long  acted,  I  here  offer  my  commission,  and  take  my  leave  of 
all  the  employments  of  public  life." 


36  GEORGE  WASHINGTON, 

The  next  day  he  returned  to  Mount  Vernon,  where  he  expected  to  sperMj 
the  remainder  of  his  days  as  a  private  citizen.  This,  however,  could  not  be, 
The  wisdom  and  abihty  of  which  he  had  given  such  abundant  proof  was  soon 
required  once  more  in  his  country's  service. 

The  great  problem  which  now  engrossed  all  minds  was  the  consolidation  of 
the  thirteen  States  into  a  nation.  To  this  subject  Washington,  who  had  suffered 
so  intensely  from  the  inefficiency  of  the  Continental  Congress,  devoted  his  most 
anxious  attention.  A  convention  was  called  in  the  year  1787.  Washington 
was  a  delegate  from  Virginia,  and  was  unanimously  chosen  to  preside  over  its 
deliberations.  The  result  was  the  present  Constitution  of  the  United  States ; 
which  created  a  nation  from  the  people  of  all  the  States,  with  supreme  powers 
for  all  the  purposes  of  a  general  government,  and  leaving  with  the  States  those 
questions  of  local  law  in  which  the  integrity  of  the  nation  was  not  involved. 
The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is,  in  the  judgment  of  the  millions  of  the 
American  people,  the  most  sagacious  document  which  has  ever  emanated  from 
uninspired  minds.  It  has  created  the  strongest  government  upon  this  globe. 
It  has  made  the  United  States  of  America  what  they  now  are.  The  world  must 
look  at  the  fruit,  and  wonder  and  admire. 

FIRST    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    NEW    NATION. 

Upon  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  all  eyes  were  turned  to  Washington 
as  chief  magistrate.  By  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  Electors  he  was  chosen  the 
first  President  of  the  United  States.  There  was  probably  scarcely  a  dissentient 
voice  in  the  nation.  New  York  was  then  the  seat  of  government.  As  Wash- 
ington left  Mount  Vernon  for  the  metropolis  to  assume  these  new  duties  of  toil 
and  care,  we  find  recorded  in  his  journal : — 

"About  ten  o'clock  I  bade  adieu  to  Mount  Vernon,  to  private  life,  and  to 
domestic  felicity  ;  and,  with  a  mind  oppressed  with  more  anxious  and  painful 
sensations  than  I  have  words  to  express,  set  out  for  New  York,  with  the  best 
disposition  to  render  service  to  my  country  in  obedience  to  its  call,  but  with  lesis 
hopes  of  answering  its  expectations." 

On  his  journey  to  New  York  Washington  was  met  and  escorted  by  crowds 
of  people,  who  made  his  progress  a  march  of  triumph.  At  Trenton  a  beautiful 
arch,  decorated  with  flowers,  spanned  the  road,  commemorating  his  victory 
over  the  Hessians  in  1776.  His  path  was  strewn  with  flowers,  and  troops  of 
children  sang  songs  of  welcome. 

Washington  was  inaugurated  President  of  the  United  States  on  the  30th 
of  April,  1789.  He  remained  in  the  presidential  chair  two  terms  of  four  years 
each.  At  the  close  of  his  administration,  in  the  year  1 796,  he  again  retired  to 
the  peaceful  shades  of  Mount  Vernon.  Soon  after  his  return  he  wrote  a  letter 
to  a  friend,  in  which  he  described  the  manner  in  which  he  passed  his  time.  He 
rose  with  the  sun,  and  first  made  preparations  for  the  business  of  the  day. 


"l  AM  READY  FOR  ANY  SERVICE  THAT  I  CAN  GIVE  MY  COUNTRY" 

1  1798  our  Government  was  about  to  declare  war  against  France.      Congress  appointed  Washington  commander-in-cb'ef 
cf  the  American  Army.     The  Secretary  of  War  carried   the  commission  in  person  to  Mt.  Vernon.     The  old 
hero,  sitting  on  his  horse  in  the  harvest  field,  accepted  in  the  above  patriotic  words 


PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS.  37 

"  By  the  time  I  have  accomplished  these  matters,"  he  adds,  "breakfast  is 
ready.  This  being  over,  I  mount  my  horse,  and  ride  round  my  farms,  which 
employs  me  until  it  is  time  to  dress  for  dinner,  at  which  I  rarely  miss  to  see 
strange  faces,  come,  as  they  say,  out  of  respect  to  me.  And  how  different  is 
this  from  having  a  few  friends  at  the  social  board  !  The  usual  time  of  sitting  at 
table,  a  walk,  and  tea,  bring  me  within  the  dawn  of  candle-light ;  previous  to 
which,  if  not  prevented  by  company,  I  resolve  that,  as  soon  as  the  glimmering 
taper  supplies  the  place  of  the  great  luminary,  I  will  retire  to  my  writing-table, 
and  acknowledge  the  letters  I  have  received.  Having  given  you  this  history  of 
a  day,  it  will  serve  for  a  year." 

The  following  anecdotes  have  been  related,  illustrative  of  President  Wash- 
ington's habits  of  punctuality.  Whenever  he  assigned  to  meet  Congress  at 
noon,  he  seldom  failed  of  passing  the  door  of  the  hall  when  the  clock  struck 
twelve.  His  dining-hour  was  at  four  o'clock,  when  he  always  sat  down  to  his 
table,  whether  his  gueSts  were  assembled  or  not,  merely  allowing  five  minutes 
for  the  variation  of  time-pieces.  To  those  who  came  late,  he  remarked,  "Gen- 
tlemen, we  are  punctual  here :  my  cook  never  asks  whether  the  company  has 
arrived,  but  whether  the  hour  has." 

Captain  Pease  had  a  beautiful  span  of  horses,  which  he  wished  to  sell  to  the 
President.  The  President  appointed  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  examine 
them  at  his  stable.  The  Captain  arrived  with  his  span  at  quarter  past  five.  He 
was  told  by  the  groom  that  the  President  was  there  at  five  o'clock,  but  was  then 
gone  to  attend  to  other  engagements.  The  President's  time  was  wholly  occu- 
pied for  several  days,  so  that  Captain  Pease  had  to  remain  a  whole  week  in 
Philadelphia  before  he  could  get  another  opportunity  to  exhibit  his  span. 

Washington,  having  inherited  a  large  landed  estate  in  Virginia,  was,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  a  slaveholder.  The  whole  number  which  he  held  at  the  time 
of  his  death  was  one  hundred  and  twenty-four.  The  system  met  his  strong 
disapproval.  In  1786  he  wrote  to  Robert  Morris,  saying,  "There  is  no  man 
living  who  wishes  more  sincerely  than  I  do  to  see  a  plan  adopted  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery." 

Long  before  this  he  had  recorded  his  resolve  :  "I  never  mean,  unless  some 
particular  circumstances  should  compel  me  to  it,  to  possess  another  slave  by 
purchase  ;  ic  being  among  my  first  wishes  to  see  some  plan  adopted  by  which 
slavery  in  this  country  may  be  abolished  by  law." 

Mrs.  Washington,  immediately  after  her  husband's  death,  learning  from  his 
will  that  the  only  obstacle  to  the  immediate  emancipation  of  the  slaves  was  her 
right  of  dower,  immediately  relinquished  that  right,  and  the  slaves  were  at  once 
emancipated. 

The  1 2th  of  December,  1799,  was  chill  and  damp.  Washington,  however, 
took  his  usual  round  on  horseback  to  his  farms,  and  returned  late  in  the  after- 

3  S  &  D 


38 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 


I 


noon,  wet  with  sleet,  and  shivering  with  cold.  Though  the  snow  was  clinging 
to  his  hair  behind  when  he  came  in,  he  sat  down  to  dinner  without  changing  his 
dress.  The  next  day  three  inches  of  snow  whitened  the  ground,  and  the  sky 
was  clouded.  Washington,  feeling  that  he  had  taken  cold,  remained  by  the  fire- 
side during  the  morning.     As  it  cleared  up  in  the  afternoon,  he  went  out  to 


THE  TOMB   OF  WASHINGTON   AT   MOUNT   VERNON. 


superintend  some  work  upon  the  lawn.  He  was  then  hoarse,  and  the  hoarse- 
ness increased  as  night  came  on.  He,  however,  took  no  remedy  for  it,  saying, 
"I  never  take  anything  to  carry  off  a  cold.     Let  it  go  as  it  came." 

He  passed  the  evening  as  usual,  reading  the  papers,  answering  letters,  and 
conversing  with  his  family.     About  two  o'clock  the  next  morning,  Saturday,  the 


LAST  HOURS,  39 

14th,  he  awoke  in  an  ague-chill,  and  was  seriously  unwell.  At  sunrise  his 
physician,  Dr.  Craig,  who  resided  at  Alexandria,  was  sent  for.  In  the  mean- 
time he  was  bled  by  one  of  his  overseers,  but  with  no  relief,  as  he  rapidly  grew 
worse.  Dr.  Craig  reached  Mount  Vernon  at  eleven  o'clock,  and  immediately 
bled  his  patient  again,  but  without  effect.  Two  consulting  physicians  arrived 
during  the  day  ;  and,  as  the  difficulty  in  breathing  and  swallowing  rapidly 
increased,  venesection  was  again  attempted.  It  is  evident  that  Washington 
then  considered  his  case  doubtful.  He  examined  his  will,  and  destroyed  some 
papers  which  he  did  not  wish  to  have  preserved. 

His  sufferinofs  from  inflammation  of  the  throat  and  strucro-lina-  for  breath,  as 
the  afternoon  wore  away,  became  quite  severe.  Still,  he  retained  his  mental 
faculties  unimpaired,  and  spoke  briefly  of  his  approaching  death  and  burial. 
About  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  he  said  to  Dr.  Craig,  'T  die  hard  ;  but  I  am 
not  afraid  to  go.  I  believed,  from  my  first  attack,  that  I  should  not  survive  it : 
my  breath  cannot  last  long."  About  six  o'clock,  his  physician  asked  him  if  he 
would  sit  up  in  his  bed.  He  held  out  his  hands,  and  was  raised  up  on  his  pillow, 
when  he  said,  "  I  feel  that  I  am  going.  I  thank  you  for  your  attentions.  You 
had  better  not  take  any  more  trouble  about  me,  but  let  me  go  off  quietly.  I 
cannot  last  long." 

He  then  sank  back  upon  his  pillow,  and  made  several  unavailing  attempts 
to  speak  intelligibly.  About  ten  o'clock  he  said,  "I  am  just  going.  Have  me 
decently  buried,  and  do  not  let  my  body  be  put  into  the  vault  until  three  days 
after  I  am  dead.  Do  you  understand  me  ?"  To  the  reply,  "  Yes,  sir,"  he 
remarked,  "It  is  well."  These  were  the  last  words  he  uttered.  Soon  after  this 
he  gently  expired,  in  the  sixty-eighth  year  of  his  age. 

At  the  moment  of  his  death  Mrs.  Washington  sat  in  silent  grief  at  the  foot 
of  his  bed.  "Is  he  gone?"  she  asked,  in  a  firm  and  collected  voice.  The 
physician,  unable  to  speak,  gave  a  silent  signal  of  assent,  " 'Tis  well,"  she 
added,  in  the  same  untremulous  utterance,  "All  is  now  over,  I  shall  soon 
follow  him.     I  have  no  more  trials  to  pass  through." 

On  the  1 8th  his  remains  were  deposited  in  the  tomb  at  Mount  Vernon, 
where  they  still  repose  ;  and  his  name  and  memory  live  on  immortal,  forever 
enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  a  grateful  people. 

**  How  sleep  the  brave  who  sink  to  rest 
By  all  their  country's  wishes  blest ! 
By  fairy  hands  their  knell  is  rung ; 
By  forms  unseen  their  dirge  is  sung ; 
There  Honor  comes,  a  pilgrim  gray, 
To  bless  the  turf  that  wraps  their  clay^ 
And  Freedom  shall  awhile  repair 
To  dwell,  a  weeping  hermit,  there." 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN, 
THE   INVENTOR,  PHIIvOSOPHER,  AND  STATESNIAN. 

.■y,-^:.v^^<::^      Q  ONE,"  says  a  well-known   writer,  "ever  started  from 
#|V,  a.  lower  point  than  the  poor  apprentice  of  Boston  ; 

no  one  ever  raised  himself  higher  by  his  own  un- 
aided forces  than  the  inventor  of  the  lio-htnine-rod. 
,'■  Better  than  the  biographies  ot  Plutarch,  this  life, 
,  ^;^0^^'  SO  long  and  so  well  filled,  is  a  source  of  perpetual 

4:    \-  W^  instruction   to  all   men.     Every    one    can    there    find 

counsel  and  example." 
{  ,  ""  Franklin's    autobiography    is    one    of   the    most 

'x  '         fascinating  books  in   the  language.     It  has  the  charm  of 

//y\,,,    ,  ,_^        style   common   to  all   of  his  writings;   and   no  one  who  has 
opportunity  should  miss  reading  this  unrivaled  book.     It  was 
undertaken  at  first  for   the   edification   of  the   members   of  his   own   family,  and 
afterward   continued  at   the   pressing   request  of  friends    in   London  and   Paris. 
His  autobiography,  however,  covers  only  the  first  fifty  years  of  his  life. 

For  three  hundred  years  at  least  Franklin's  family  lived  in  the  village  of 
Ecton,  in  Northamptonshire,  England,  the  eldest  son,  who  inherited  the  property, 
being  always  brought  up  to  the  trade  of  a  smith.  Franklin  himself  "was  the 
youngest  son  of  the  youngest  son  for  five  generations  back."  Franklin's 
father,  Josiah,  took  his  wife  and  three  children  to  New  England  in  1682,  where 
he  practiced  the  trade  of  a  tallow-chandler  and  soap-boiler.  Franklin  was  born 
in  1706,  and  was  the  youngest  of  seventeen  children. 

Benjamin  being  the  youngest  of  ten  sons,  his  father  intended  him  for  the 
Church,  and  sent  him  to  school  when  eight  years  of  age.  Although  he  made 
very  rapid  progress  in  the  school,  his  father  concluded  he  could  not  afford  a 
college  education.  At  the  age  often  young  Benjamin  was  taken  home  to  assist 
in  cutting  the  wicks  of  candles,  and  otherwise  to  make  himself  useful. 

Until  twelve  years  of  age  Benjamin  continued  in  his  father's  business,  but 
as  he  manifested  a  great  dislike  for  it,  his  parents  set  about  finding  some  trade 
more  congenial  to  his  tastes.  With  this  view  his  father  took  him  to  see  various 
artificers  at  their  work,   that  he   might  observe  the  tastes  of  the  boy.     This 

43 


44  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 

experience  was  very  valuable  to  him,  as  it  taught  him  to  do  many  little  jobs  for 
himself.  During  this  time  Benjamin  spent  most  of  his  pocket-money  in  purchas- 
ing books,  some  of  which  he  sold  when  he  had  read  them,  in  order  to  buy  others. 
He  read  through  most  of  the  books  in  his  father's  very  limited  library. 

At  length  Franklin's  fondness  for  books  caused  his  father  to  decide  to  make 
him  a  printer.  His  brother  James  had  already  entered  that  business,  and  had 
set  up  in  Boston.  He  signed  his  indentures  when  only  twelve  years  old, 
apprenticing  himself  to  his  brother  until  the  age  of  twenty-one. 

Meeting  with  a  book  on  vegetarianism,  Franklin  determined  to  give  the 
system  a  trial.  This  led  to  some  inconvenience  in  his  brother's  housekeeping, 
so  Franklin  proposed  to  board  himself  if  his  brother  would  give  him  half  the 
sum  he  paid  for  his  board.  Out  of  this  he  was  able  to  save  a  considerable 
amount  for  the  purpose  of  buying  books.  Moreover,  the  time  required  for  his 
meals  was  now  so  short  that  the  dinner-hour  afforded  considerable  leisure  for 
reading. 

In  1720  or  1 72 1  James  Franklin  began  to  print  the  New  England  Courant. 
To  this  paper,  which  he  helped  to  compose  and  print,  Benjamin  becane  an 
anonymous  contributor.  The  members  of  the  staff  spoke  highly  of  his  contribu- 
tions, but  when  the  authorship  became  known,  James  conceived  a  jealousy  of  his 
younger  brother,  which  led  to  their  separation.  An  article  in  the  paper  having 
offended  the  Assembly,  James  was  imprisoned  for  a  month,  and  forbidden  to 
print  the  paper.  He  then  secredy  freed  Benjamin  from  his  indentures,  in  order 
that  the  paper  might  be  published  in  his  name.  At  length,  a  disagreement  arising 
Benjamin  took  advantage  of  the  canceling  of  his  indentures  to  quit  his  brother's 
service.  As  he  could  get  no  employment  in  Boston,  he  obtained  a  passage  to 
New  York,  whence  he  was  recommended  to  go  to  Philadelphia,  which  he  reached 
after  a  very  troublesome  journey.  His  whole  stock  of  cash  then  consisted  of  a 
Dutch  dollar  and  about  a  shilling's  worth  of  coppers.  His  first  appearance  in 
Philadelphia,  about  eight  o'clock  on  a  Sunday  morning,  was  certainly  striking. 
A  youth  between  seventeen  and  eighteen  years  of  age,  dressed  in  his  working 
clothes,  which  were  dirty  through  his  journey,  with  his  pockets  stuffed  out  with 
stockings  and  shirts,  his  aspect  was  not  calculated  to  command  respect. 

-•  i  walked  up  the  street,"  he  writes,  "gazing  about,  till  near  the  market 
house  I  met  a  boy  with  bread.  I  had  made  many  a  meal  on  bread,  and,  inquir- 
ing where  he  got  it,  I  went  immediately  to  the  baker's  he  directed  me  to,  on 
Second  street,  and  ask'd  for  bisket,  intending  such  as  we  had  in  Boston  ;  but 
they,  it  seems,  were  not  made  in  Philadelphia.  Then  I  asked  for  a  threepenny 
loaf,  and  was  told  they  had  none  such.  So,  not  considering  or  knowing  the  dif 
ference  of  money,  and  the  greater  cheapness,  nor  the  name  of  his  bread,  I  bade 
him  give  me  three-penny-worth  of  any  sort.  He  gave  me,  accordingly,  three 
great  puffy  rolls,     I  was  surpriz'd  at  the  quantity,  but  took  it,  and  having-  no 


i 


FRANKLIN  IN  PHILADELPHIA.  45 

room  in  my  pockets,  walk'd  off  with  a  roll  under  each  arm,  and  eatmg  the 
other.  Thus  I  went  up  Market  street  as  far  as  Fourth  street,  passing  by  the 
door  of  Mr.  Read,  my  future  wife's  father  ;  when  she,  standing  at  the  door,  saw 
me,  and  thought  I  made,  as  I  certainly  did,  a  most  awkward,  ridiculous  appear- 
ance. Then  I  turned  and  went  down  Chestnut  street  and  part  of  Walnut  street, 
eating  my  roll  all  the  way,  and,  coming  round,  found  myself  again  at  Market 
street  wharf,  near  the  boat  I  came  in,  to  which  I  went  for  a  draught  of  the  river 
water  ;  and,  being  filled  out  with  one  of  my  rolls,  gave  the  other  two  to  a  woman 
and  her  child  that  came  down  the  river  in  the  boat  with  us,  and  were  waiting  to 
go  further." 

FRANKLIN    IN    PHILADELPHIA. 

In  Philadelphia  Franklin  obtained  an  introduction  to  a  printer,  named  Kei- 
mer,  who  had  set  up  business  with  an  old  press  which  he  appeared  not  to  know 
how  to  use,  and  one  pair  of  cases  of  English  type.  Here  Franklin  obtained  em- 
ployment when  the  business  on  hand  would  permit,  and  he  put  the  press  in  order 
and  worked  it.  Keimer  obtained  lodging  for  him  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Read, 
and,  by  industry  and  economical  living,  Franklin  soon  found  himself  in  easy 
circumstances.  Sir  William  Keith,  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  hearing  of 
Franklin,  called  upon  him,  and  promised  to  obtain  for  him  the  Government  print- 
ing if  he  would  set  up  for  himself.  Josiah  Franklin  thought  his  son  too  young 
to  take  the  responsibility  of  a  business,  whereon  the  Governor,  stating  that  he 
was  determined  to  have  a  good  printer  there,  promised  to  find  the  means  of  equip- 
ping the  printing-office  himself,  and  suggested  Franklin's  making  a  journey  to 
England  to  purchase  the  plant.  He  promised  letters  of  introduction  to  various 
persons  in  England,  as  well  as  a  letter  of  credit.  These  were  to  be  sent  on 
board  the  ship,  and  Franklin,  having  gone  on  board,  awaited  the  letters.  When 
the  Governor's  despatches  came,  they  were  all  put  into  a  bag  together,  and  the 
captain  promised  to  let  Franklin  have  his  letters  before  landing.  On  opening 
the  bag  off  Plymouth,  there  were  no  letters  of  the  kind  promised,  and  Franklin 
was  left,  without  introductions  and  almost  without  money,  to  make  his  own  way 
in  the  world.  In  London  he  learned  that  Governor  Keith  was  well  known  as  a 
man  In  whom  no  dependence  could  be  placed,  and  as  to  his  giving  a  letter  of 
credit,  "  he  had  no  credit  to  give." 

A  friend  of  Franklin's,  named  Ralph,  accompanied  him  from  America,  and 
the  two  took  lodgings  together.  Franklin  immediately  obtained  employment  at 
a  printing-office,  but  Ralph,  who  knew  no  trade  but  aimed  at  literature,  was  unable 
to  get  any  work.  He  could  not  obtain  employment,  even  as  a  copying  clerk  so 
for  some  time  the  wages  which  Franklin  earned  had  to  support  the  two. 

Among  Franklin's  fellow-passengers  from  Philadelphia  to  England  was  an 
American  merchant,  a  Mr.  Denham.  This  gentleman  always  remained  a  firm 
friend  to  Franklin,  who,  during  his  stay  in  London,  sought  his  advice  when  any 


46 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 


important  questions  arose.  When  Mr.  Denham  returned  to  Philadelphia,  he 
offered  Franklin  an  appointment  as  clerk,  which  was  afterward  to  develop  into 
a  commission  agency.  The  offer  was  accepted,  and  the  two  returned  to  Phila- 
delphia in  October,  1726.  Here  he  found  that  Miss  Read,  to  whom  he  had 
become  engaged  before  leaving  for  England  and  to  whom  he  had  written  only 
once  during  his  absence,  had  married.  Shortly  after  starting  in  business,  Mr. 
Denham  died,  and  thus  left  Franklin  to  commence  life  again  for  himself.  Kei- 
mer  had  by  this  time  obtained  a  fairly  extensive  establishment,  and  employed  a 


PENN'S  RESIDENCE  IN  bECOND  STREET,  BELOW  CHESTNUT  STREET. 


number  of  hands,  but  none  of  them  of  much  value  ;  and  he  made  overtures  to 
Franklin  to  take  the  management  of  his  printing-office,  Franklin  set  the  print- 
ing-house in  order,  started  type-founding,  made  the  ink,  and,  when  necessary, 
executed  engravings. 

While  working  for  Keimer,  Franklin  formed  a  club,  called  the  Junto,  which 
was  destined  to  exert  considerable  influence  on  American  politics.  It  was  essen- 
tially a  debating  society,  the  subject  for  each  evening's  discussion  being  proposed 
at  the  preceding  meeting.     The  Club  lasted  for  about  forty  years,  and  becarne 


''POOR  RICHARD'S  ALMANACKr  47 

the  nucleus  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  of  which  Franklin  was  the 
first  president. 

On  leaving  Keimer's,  Franklin  went  into  partnership  with  one  of  his  fellow- 
workmen,  Hugh  Meredith,  whose  father  found  the  necessary  capital,  and  a  print- 
ing-office was  started  which  soon  excelled  its  two  rivals  in  Philadelphia.  Frank- 
lin's industry  attracted  the  attention  of  the  townsfolk,  and  inspired  the  merchants 
with  confidence  in  the  prospects  of  the  new  concern. 

"In  order  to  secure  my  credit  and  character  as  a  tradesman,  I  took  care  not 
only  to  be  in  reality  industrious  and  frugal,  but  to  avoid  all  appearances  to  the 
contrary.  I  drest  plainly ;  I  was  seen  at  no  places  of  idle  diversion.  I  never 
went  out  a-fishing  or  shooting ;  a  book,  indeed,  sometimes  debauch'd  me  from 
my  work,  but  that  was  seldom,  snug,  and  gave  no  scandal ;  and,  to  show  that  1 
was  not  above  my  business,  I  sometimes  brought  home  the  paper  I  purchas'd  at 
the  stores  thro'  the  streets  on  a  wheelbarrow.  Thus  being  esteem'd  an  indus- 
trious, thriving  young  man,  and  paying  duly  for  what  I  bought,  the  merchants 
who  imported  stationery  solicited  my  custom;  others  proposed  supplying  me  with 
books,  and  I  went  on  swimmingly.  In  the  meantime,  Keimer's  credit  declin- 
ing daily,  he  was  at  last  forc'd  to  sell  his  printing-house  to  satisfy  his  creditors." 

On  September  i,  1730,  Franklin  married  his  ioxwi^x  fiancee,  whose  previous 
husband  had  left  her  and  was  reported  to  have  died  in  the  West  Indies.  The 
marriage  was  a  very  happy  one.  Industry  and  frugality  reigned  in  the  house- 
hold of  the  young  printer.  Mrs.  Franklin  not  only  managed  the  house,  but 
assisted  in  the  business,  folding  and  stitching  pamphlets,  and  in  other  ways 
making  herself  useful. 

PUBLIC    SERVICE    AND    RESPONSIBILITY. 

In  1732  appeared  the  first  copy  of  "  Poor  Richard's  Almanack."  This  was 
published  by  Franklin  for  about  twenty-five  years  in  succession,  and  attained  a 
world-wide  fame.  Besides  the  usual  astronomical  information,  it  contained  a 
collection  of  entertaining  anecdotes,  verses,  jests,  etc.,  while  the  "little  spaces 
that  occurred  between  the  remarkable  events  in  the  calendar"  were  filled  with 
proverbial  sayings,  inculcating  industry  and  frugality  as  helps  to  virtue.  These 
sayings  were  collected  and  prefixed  to  the  almanack  of  1757,  whence  they  were 
copied  into  the  American  newspapers,  and  afterward  reprinted  as  a  broad-sheet 
in  Engfland  and  in  France. 

In  1736  Franklin  was  chosen  Clerk  to  the  General  Assembly,  an  office  to 
which  he  was  annually  re-elected  until  he  became  a  member  of  the  Assembly 
about  1750.  There  was  one  member  who,  on  the  second  occasion  of  his 
election,  made  a  long  speech  against  him.  Franklin  determined  to  secure  the 
friendship  of  this  memb(ir.  Accordingly,  he  wrote  to  him  to  request  the  loan 
of  a  very  scarce  and  curious  book  which  was  in  his  library.     The  book  was  lent 


48  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 

and  returned  in  about  a  week,  with  a  note  of  thanks.  The  member  ever  after 
manifested  a  readiness  to  serve  Franklin,  and  they  became  great  friends— 
''  Another  instance  of  the  truth  of  an  old  maxim  I  had  learned,  which  says,  'Hi 
that  has  once  done  you  a  kindness  will  be  more  ready  to  do  you  another  than  lit 
whom  you  yourself  have  obliged!  And  it  shows  how  much  more  profitable  it  is 
to  prudendy  remove,  than  to  resent,  return,  and  condnue  inimical  proceedings." 

Spain,  having  been  for  some  years  at  war  with  England,  was  joined  at  length 
by  France.  This  threatened  danger  to  the  American  colonies.  Franklin  pub- 
lished a  pamphlet  entided  "Plain  Truth,"  setdng  forth  the  unarmed  condition 
of  the  colonies,  and  recommending  the  formadon  of  a  volunteer  force  for 
defensive  purposes.  The  pamphlet  excited  much  attention.  The  provision  of 
war  material  was  a  difficulty  with  the  Assembly,  which  consisted  largely  of 
Quakers,  who,  though  privately  willing  that  the  country  should  be  put,  in  a  state 
of  defense,  hesitated  to  vote  in  opposidon  to  their  peace  principles.  Hence, 
when  the  Government  of  New  England  asked  a  grant  of  gunpowder  from  Penn- 
sylvania, the  Assembly  voted  ;^3000  "  for  the  purchasing  of  bread,  flour,  wheat, 
or  other  grain!'  When  it  was  proposed  to  devote  ^60  toward  the  erection  of 
a  battery  below  the  town,  Franklin  suggested  that  it  should  be  proposed  that  a 
fire-engine  be  purchased  with  the  money,  and  that  the  committee  should  "  buy 
a  great  gun,  which  is  certainly  2i  fire-engine!' 

The  "  Pennsylvania  fireplace"  was  invented  in  1742.  A  patent  was  offered 
to  Franklin  by  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  but  he  declined  it  on  the  principle 
''that,  as  we  enjoy  great  advantages  from  the  inventions  of  others,  we  should  bt 
glad  of  an  opportunity  to  serve  others  by  any  invention  of  ours ;  and  this  we 
should  do  freely  and  generously!' 

Having  practically  retired  from  business,  Franklin  intended  to  devote  him- 
self to  philosophical  studies,  having  commenced  his  electrical  researches  some 
time  before  in  conjunction  with  the  other  members  of  the  Library  Company. 
Public  business,  however,  crowded  upon  him.  He  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Assembly,  a  councillor,  and  afterward  an  alderman  of  the  c'ty,  and  by  the 
Governor  was  made  a  justice  of  the  peace.  As  a  member  of  the  Assembly,  he 
was  largely  concerned  in  providing  the  means  for  the  erection  of  a  hospital,  and 
in  arranging  for  the  paving  and  cleansing  of  the  streets  of  the  city.  In  1753  he 
was  appointed,  in  conjunction  with  Mr.  Hunter,  Postmaster-General  of  America. 
The  post-office  of  the  colonies  had  previously  been  conducted  at  a  loss.  In  a  few 
years,  under  Franklin's  management,  it  not  only  paid  the  stipends  of  himself 
and  Mr.  Hunter,  but  yielded  a  considerable  revenue  to  the  Crown. 

In  1754  war  with  France  appeared  to  be  again  imminent,  and  a  Congress 
of  Commissioners  from  the  several  colonies  was  arranged  for.  Of  course, 
Franklin  was  one  of  the  representatives  of  Pennsylvania,  and  was  also  one  of 
the  membens  who  independently  drew  up  a  plan  for  the  union  of  all  the  colonies 


JOURNEY  TO  ENGLAND.  49 

under  one  government,  for  defensive  and  other  general  purposes,  and  his  was 
the  plan  finally  approved  by  Congress  for  the  union,  though  it  was  not  accepted 
by  the  Assemblies  or  by  the  English  Government,  being  regarded  by  the  former 
as  having  too  much  of  the  prerogative  in  it,  by  the  latter  as  being  too  democratic, 
Franklin  wrote  respecting  this  scheme  :  "  The  different  and  contrary  reasons  of 
dislike  to  my  plan  makes  me  suspect  that  it  was  really  the  true  medium  ;  and  I 
am  still  of  opinion  that  it  would  have  been  happy  for  both  sides  the  water  if  it 
had  been  adopted.  The  colonies,  so  united,  would  have  been  sufficiently  strong 
to  have  defended  themselves  ;  there  would  then  have  been  no  need  of  troops 
from  England  ;  of  course,  the  subsequent  pretense  for  taxing  America,  and  the 
bloody  contest  it  occasioned,  would  have  been  avoided." 

In  the  following  year  General   Braddock  started  on  his  famous  expedition 

against  Fort    Duquesne.       Franklin's   services   were    called    for   in    providing 

horses  and  wagons  from  the  Pennsylvania  farmers  ;  and  in  the  disastrous  defeat 

which  Braddock  suffered,  and  in  the  long  years  of  the  French  and  Indian  war 

I    which  followed,  Franklin  took  a  prominent  part  in  devising  means  of  protection 

I    for  the  Colonies.     When  at  last  the  war  was  ended  by  the  victory  and  death 

'    of  Wolfe  on   the  heights  of  Quebec,  Franklin's  attention  was   turned   to   the 

j    relations  of  the  Colonies  to  the  mother  country,  which  were  becoming  daify 

I    more  strained  by  the  oppressions  of  the  British  Parliament. 

I 

I  FRANKLIN  SENT  TO  ENGLAND. 

I  In   1757  Franklin  was  sent  by  the  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  to  London^ 

i    to  present  a  remonstrance  against  the  conduct  of  the  Governor,  who  refused  to 
j    assent  to  bills  for  raising  revenue  for  the   king  unless  the  proprietary  estates 
j    were  exempted  from  taxation.     When  Franklin  reached  London  he  took  up  his 
I    abode  with  Mrs.  Margaret  Stevenson.     For  Mrs.   Stevenson  and  her  daughter 
:    Mary,  then  a  young  lady  of  eighteen,  he  acquired  a  sincere  affection,  which  con- 
tinued throughout  their  lives.     Miss  Stevenson  spent  much  of  her  time  with  an 
I    aunt  in  the  country,  and  some  of  Franklin's  letters  to   her  respecting  the  con- 
duct of  her  "higher  education  "  are  among  the  most  interesting  of  his  writings. 
;    In  coming  to  England,  Franklin  brought  with  him  his  son  William,  who  entered 
I    on  the  study  of  law.     To  his  wife  and  daughter  Franklin  frequently  sent  pres- 
ents, and  his  letters  to  Mrs.  Franklin  give  a  pretty  full  account  of  all  his  doings 
while  in  England.     During  his  visit  he  received  the  honorary  degrees  of  D.C.L. 
I    from  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  LL.D.  from  that  of  Edinburgh.     In  August, 
\    1762,  he  started  again  for  America,  and  reached  Philadelphia  on  November 
I,  after  an  absence  of  five  years.     His  son  William  had  shortly  before  been 
i    appointed  Governor  of  New  Jersey,     From  this  time  William  Franklin  became 
I    very  much  the  servant  of  the  proprietaries  and  of  the  English  government,  but 
I    no  offer  of  patronage  produced  any  effect  on  the  father, 


//^d^' 


•^y 


THE  SURRENDER  AT  YORKTOWN 


POLLY  OF  THE  STAMP  ACT.  51 

Franklin's  stay  in  America  was  of  short  duration.  While  there  he  was 
mainly  instrumental  in  quelling  an  insurrection  in  Pennsylvania,  and  was  en- 
gaged in  long  and  tedious  efforts  to  compose  the  incessant  disputes  between 
the  Assembly  and  the  proprietary  governors.  As  soon  as  the  Assembly  was 
convened,  it  determined  to  send  Franklin  to  England,  to  take  charge  of  a  peti- 
tion for  a  change  of  government.  The  merchants  subscribed  ^iioo  toward 
his  expenses  in  a  few  hours,  and  in  twelve  days  he  was  on  his  journey,  being 
accompanied  to  the  ship  by  a  cavalcade  of  three  hundred  of  his  friends.  Arrived 
in  London,  he  at  once  took  up  his  old  lodgings  with  Mrs.  Stevenson.  He  was  a 
master  of  satire,  equaled  only  by  Swift,  and  during  the  quarrels  which  preceded 
the  War  of  Independence,  as  well  as  during  the  war,  he  made  good  use  of  his 
powers. 

One  of  Franklin's  chief  objects  in  coming  to  England  was  to  prevent  the 
passing  of  the  Stamp  Act.  The  colonists  urged  that  they  had  always  been 
liberal  in  their  votes,  whenever  money  was  required  by  the  Crown,  and  that 
Parliament  had  no  right  to  tax  America  so  long  as  the  colonists  were  unrepre- 
sented in  Parliament.  "  Had  Mr.  Grenville,  instead  of  that  act,  applied  to  the 
King  in  Council  for  requisltional  letters,  I  am  sure  he  would  have  obtained  more 
money  from  the  colonies  by  their  voluntary  grants  than  he  himself  expected 
from  the  sale  of  stamps.  But  he  chose  compulsion  rather  than  persuasion,  and 
would  not  receive  from  their  good-will  what  he  thought  he  could  obtain  without 
it."  The  Stamp  Act  was  passed,  stamps  were  printed,  distributors  were  ap- 
pointed, but  the  colonists  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  stamps.  The 
distributors  were  compelled  to  resign  their  commissions,  and  the  captains  of 
vessels  were  forbidden  to  land  the  stamped  paper.  The  cost  of  printing  and 
distributing  amounted  to  ^12,000;  the  whole  return  was  about  ^1500,  and 
that  mainly  from  Canada  and  the  West  Indies. 

In  1767  Franklin  visited  Paris.  Though  Parliament  had  repealed  the  Stamp 
Act,  it  nevertheless  insisted  on  its  right  to  tax  the  colonies.  The  Duty  Act  was 
scarcely  less  objectionable  than  its  predecessors.  On  Franklin's  return  from 
the  continent,  he  heard  of  the  retaliatory  measures  of  the  Boston  people,  who 
had  assembled  in  town-meetings,  formally  resolved  to  encourage  home  manu- 
factures, to  abandon  superfluities,  and,  after  a  certain  time,  to  give  up  the  use  of 
some  articles  of  foreign  manufacture. 

A  quantity  of  tea  sent  by  the  East  India  Company  to  Boston  was  destroyed 
by  the  people.  The  British  Government  then  blockaded  the  port.  This  soon  led 
to  open  hostilides.  Franklin  worked  hard  to  eflect  a  reconciliation.  He  drew 
up  a  scheme,  setting  forth  the  conditions  under  which  he  conceived  a  reconcilia- 
tion might  be  brought  about,  and  discussed  it  fully  with  Mr.  Daniel  Barclay  and 
Dr.  Fothergill,  This  scheme  was  shown  to  Lord  Howe,  and  afterward  brought 
before  the  Ministry,  but  was  rejected.     All  his  negotiations  were  fruitless.     At 


52  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 

last  he  addressed  a  memorial  to  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth,  Secretary  of  State, 
complaining  of  the  blockade  of  Boston,  which  had  then  continued  for  nine 
months,  and  had  "  during  every  week  of  its  continuance  done  damage  to  that 
town  equal  to  what  was  suffered  there  by  the  India  Company  ;"  and  claiming 
reparation  for  such  injury  beyond  the  value  of  the  tea  which  had  been  destroyedo 
This  memorial  was  returned  to  Franklin  by  Mr.  Walpole,  and  Franklin  shortly 
afterward  returned  to  Philadelphia. 

THE    REVOLUTIONARY    WAR. 

Before  Franklin  reached  America,  the  War  of  Independence,  though  not 
formally  declared,  had  fairly  begun.  He  was  appointed  a  member  of  the  second 
Continental  Congress,  and  one  of  a  committee  to  confer  with  General  Washing- 
ton respecting  the  Continental  Army.  On  October  3,  1775,  he  wrote  to 
Priestley : — 

"Tell  our  dear  good  friend.  Dr.  Price,  who  sometimes  has  his  doubts  and 
despondencies  about  our  firmness,  that  America  is  determined  and  unanimous  ; 
a  very  few  Tories  and  placemen  excepted,  who  will  probably  soon  export 
themselves.  Britain,  at  the  expense  of  three  millions,  has  killed  a  hundred  and 
fifty  Yankees  this  campaign,  which  is  ^20,000  a  head  ;  and  at  Bunker's  Hill  she 
gained  a  mile  of  ground,  half  of  which  she  lost  again  by  our  taking  the  post  on 
Ploughed  Hill.  During  the  same  time  sixty  thousand  children  have  been  born 
in  America.  From  these  data  his  mathematical  head  will  easily  calculate  the 
time  and  expense  necessary  to  kill  us  all  and  conquer  our  whole  territory." 

On  the  4th  of  July  Franklin  took  part  in  the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  When  the  document  was  about  to  be  signed,  Mr.  Hancock 
remarked,  "We  must  be  unanimous  ;  there  must  be  no  pulling  different  ways  ; 
we  must  all  hang  together."  Franklin  replied,  "  Yes,  we  must  indeed  all  hang 
together,  or  most  assuredly  we  shall  all  hang  separately." 

In  the  autumn  of  1776  Franklin  was  unanimously  chosen  a  Special  Com- 
missioner to  the  French  Court.  He  took  with  him  his  two  grandsons,  William 
Temple  Franklin  and  Benjamin  Franklin  Bache,  and  leaving  Marcus  Hook  on 
October  28th,  crossed  the  Atlantic  in  a  sloop  of  sixteen  guns.  In  Paris  he  met 
with  an  enthusiastic  reception.  M.  de  Chaumont  placed  at  his  disposal  his  house 
at  Passy,  about  a  mile  from  Paris.  Here  he  resided  for  nine  years,  being  a  con- 
stant visitor  at  the  French  Court,  and  certainly  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
figures  in  Paris.  He  was  obliged  to  serve  in  many  capacities,  and  was  very  much 
burdened  with  work.  Not  only  were  there  his  duties  as  Commissioner  at  the 
French  Court,  but  he  was  also  made  Admiralty  Judge  and  Financial  Agent, 
so  that  all  financial  negotiations,  either  with  the  French  Government  or  con- 
tractors, had  to  pass  through  his  hands.  Perhaps  the  most  unpleasant  part 
of  his  work  was  his  continued  applications  to  the  French  Court  for  monetary 


AID  FROM  FRANCE. 


h^ 


advances.  The  French  Government  warmly  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Ameri- 
cans, and  to  the  utmost  of  its  ability  assisted  them  with  money,  material,  and 
men. 

^-^   ....  -  «.       »> 


REAR    VIEW    OF    INDEPENDENCE    HALL,    PHILADELPHIA. 


At  first  the  British  Government,  regarding  the  Americans  as  rebels,  did  not 
treat  their  prisoners  as  prisoners  of  war,  but  threatened  to  try  them  for  high 
treason.  Their  sufferings  in  the  English  prisons  were  very  great.  Mr.  David 
Hartley  did  much  to  relieve  them,  and  Franklin  transmitted  money  for  the  pur- 


54  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 

pose.  When  a  treaty  had  been  formed  between  France  and  the  United  States, 
and  fortune  began  to  turn  in  favor  of  the  united  armies,  the  American  prisoners 
received  better  treatment  from  the  EngHsh  Government,  and  exchanges  took 
place  freely. 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Hartley,  Franklin  showed  something  of  the  feelings  of 
the  Americans  with  respect  to  the  English  at  that  time : — 

"  You  may  have  heard  that  accounts  upon  oath  have  been  taken  in  America, 
by  order  of  Congress,  of  the  British  barbarities  committed  there.  It  is  expected 
of  me  to  make  a  school-book  of  them,  and  to  have  thirty-five  prints  designed 
here  by  good  artists,  and  engraved,  each  expressing  one  or  more  of  the  horrid 
facts,  in  order  to  impress  the  minds  of  children  and  posterity  with  a  deep  sense 
of  your  bloody  and  insatiable  malice  and  wickedness.  Every  kindness  I  hear 
of  done  by.  an  Englishman  to  an  American  prisoner  makes  me  resolve  not  to 
proceed  in  the  work.*' 

Franklin  always  advocated  freedom  of  commerce,  even  in  time  of  war.  He 
was  of  opinion  that  the  merchant,  the  agriculturist,  and  the  fisherman  were  bene- 
factors to  mankind.  He  condemned  privateering  in  every  form,  and  endeav- 
ored to  bring  about  an  agreement  between  all  the  civilized  powers  against  the 
fitting  out  of  privateers.  He  held  that  no  merchantman  should  be  interfered  with 
unless  carrying  war  material.  He  greatly  lamented  the  horrors  of  the  war,  but 
preferred  anything  to  a  dishonorable  peace.     To  Priestley  he  wrote  : — 

"  Perhaps  as  you  grow  older  you  may  .  .  .  repent  of  having  murdered  in 
mephitic  air  so  many  honest,  harmless  mice,  and  wish  that,  to  prevent  mischief, 
you  had  used  boys  and  girls  instead  of  them.  In  what  light  we  are  viewed  by 
superior  beings  may  be  gathered  from  a  piece  of  late  West  India  news,  which 
possibly  has  not  yet  reached  you.  A  young  angel  of  distinction,  being  sent  down 
to  this  world  on  some  business  for  the  first  time,  had  an  old  courier-spirit  assigned 
him  as  a  guide.  They  arrived  over  the  seas  of  Martinico,  in  the  middle  of  the 
long  day  of  obstinate  fight  between  the  fleets  of  Rodney  and  De  Grasse.  When, 
throuo^h  the  clouds  of  smoke,  he  saw  the  fire  of  the  enns,  the  decks  covered  with 
mangled  limbs  and  bodies  dead  or  dying ;  the  ships  sinking,  burning,  or  blown 
into  the  air  ;  and  the  quantity  of  pain,  misery,  and  destruction  the  crews  yet 
alive  were  thus  with  so  much  eagerness  dealing  round  to  one  another, — he 
turned  angrily  to  his  guide,  and  said,  '  You  blundering  blockhead,  you  are  igno- 
rant of  your  business  ;  you  undertook  to  conduct  me  to  the  earth,  and  you  have 
^irought  me  into  hell !'  '  No,  sir,'  says  the  guide,  '  I  have  made  no  mistake  ;  this  is 
really  the  earth,  and  these  are  men.  Devils  never  treat  one  another  in  this  cruel 
manner ;  they  have  more  sense  and  more  of  what  men  (vainly)  call  humanity.'  " 

Franklin  maintained  that  it  would  be  far  cheaper  for  a  nation  to  extend  its 
possessions  by  purchase  from  other  nations  than  to  pay  the  cost  of  war  for  the 
sake  of  conquest. 


V/mVS  ON  RELIGION.  55 

At  last,  after  two  years'  negotiations,  a  definitive  treaty  of  peace  was 
signed  between  Great  Britain  and  tlie  United  States,  Franklin  being  one  of  the 
Commissioners  for  the  latter,  and  Mr.  Hartley  for  the  former,  and  therewith 
terminated  the  seven  years'  War  of  Independence.  Franklin  celebrated  the 
surrender  of  the  armies  of  Burgoyne  and  Cornwallis  by  a  medal,  on  which  the 
infant  Hercules  appears  strangling  two  serpents. 

RETURN    TO    AMERICA. 

On  May  2,  1785,  Franklin  received  from  Congress  permission  to  return  to 
America.  He  was  then  in  his  eightieth  year.  On  July  12th  he  left  Passy  for 
Havre,  whence  he  crossed  to  Southampton,  and  there  saw  for  the  last  time  his 
old  friend,  the  Bishop  of  St,  Asaph,  and  his  family.  He  reached  his  home  in 
Philadelphia  early  in  September,  and  the  day  after  his  arrival  he  received  a 
congratulatory  address  from  the  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania.  In  the  following 
month  he  was  elected  President  of  the  State,  and  was  twice  re-elected  to  the 
same  office,  it  being  contrary  to  the  Constitution  for  any  President  to  be  elected 
for  more  than  three  years  in  succession. 

The  following  extract  from  a  letter,  written  most  probably  to  Thomas  Paine, 
is  worthy  of  the  attention  of  some  writers  : — 

"  I  have  read  your  manuscript  with  some  attention.  By  the  argument  h 
contains  against  a  particular  Providence,  though  you  allow  a  general  Providence, 
you  strike  at  the  foundations  of  all  religion.  For  without  the  belief  of  a  Provi- 
dence that  takes  cognizance  of,  guards  and  guides,  and  may  favor  particular 
persons,  there  is  no  motive  to  worship  a  Deity,  to  fear  His  displeasure,  or  to 
pray  for  His  protection.  I  will  not  enter  into  any  discussion  of  your  principles, 
though  you  seem  to  desire  it.  But  were  you  to  succeed,  do  you  imagine  any 
good  would  be  done  by  it  ?  You  yourself  may  find  it  easy  to  live  a  virtuous 
life  without  the  assistance  afforded  by  religion  ;  you  having  a  clear  perception 
of  the  advantages  of  virtue  and  the  disadvantages  of  vice,  and  possessing 
strength  of  resolution  sufficient  to  enable  you  to  resist  common  temptations. 
But  think  how  great  a  portion  of  mankind  consists  of  weak  and  ignorant  men 
and  women,  and  of  inexperienced,  inconsiderate  youth  of  both  sexec,  who  have 
need  of  the  motives  of  religion  to  restrain  them  from  vice,  to  support  their 
virtue,  and  retain  them  in  the  practice  of  it  till  it  becomes  habitual,  which  is  the 
great  point  for  its  security.  And  perhaps  you  are  indebted  to  her  originally, 
that  is,  to  your  religious  education,  for  the  habits  of  virtue  upon  which  you 
now  justly  value  yourself.  You  might  easily  display  your  excellent  talents  of 
reasoning  upon  a  less  hazardous  subject,  and  thereby  obtain  a  rank  with  our 
most  distinguished  authors.  For  among  us  it  is  not  necessary,  as  among  the 
Hottentots,  that  a  youth,  to  be  raised  into  the  company  of  men,  should  prove 
his  manhood  by  beating  his  mother. 

4  S&D 


56 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 


"I  would  advise  you,  therefore,  not  to  attempt  unchaining  the  tiger,  but  to 
bur»  this  piece  before  it  is  seen  by  any  other  person ;  whereby  you  will  save 

yourself  a  great  deal  of  mortification  by 
the  enemies  it  may  raise  against  you, 
and  perhaps  a  good  deal  of  regret  and 
repentance.  If  men  are  so  wicked  with 
religioit,  what  would  they  be  if  withoiU 
it  ?  I  intend  this  letter  itself  as  a  praof 
of  my  friendship,  and  therefore  add  no 
professions  to  it ;  but  subscribe  simply 
yours." 

During  the  last  few  years  of  his  life 
Franklin  suffered  from  a  painful  disease, 
which  confined  him  to  his  bed  and  seri- 
ously interfered  with  his  literary  work, 
preventing  him  from  completing  his  bio- 
graphy. During  this  time  he  was  cared 
for  by  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Bache,  who 
resided  in  the  same  house  with  him.  He 
died  on  April  17,  1790,  the  immediate 
cause  of  death  being  an  affection  of 
the  lungs.  He  was  buried  beside  his  wife  in  the  cemetery  of  Christ  Church, 
Philadelphia,  the  marble  slab  upon  the  grave  bearing  no  other  inscription  than 
the  name  and  date  of  death.  In  his  early  days  (1728)  he  had  written  the  fol- 
lowing epitaph  for  himself: — 

The  Body 

OF 

BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN, 

Printer 
(like  the  cover  of  an  old  book, 
its  contents  torn  out 

AND    STRIPT  OF    ITS    LETTERING    AND    GILDINg), 

LIES    HERE,  FOOD    FOR   WORMS. 

BUT   THE   WORK    SHALL   NOT    BE    LOST, 

FOR   IT   WILL    (as   HE   BELIEVED)   APPEAR   ONCE  MORE 

IN   A    NEW   AND    MORE    ELEGANT    EDITION, 

REVISED   AND    CORRECTED 

BY 

THE  AUTHOR. 


franklin's  grave. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON, 


The  pioneer  or  dem:ocr.acy  in  aivierica. 


AT  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  people 
of  the  United  States  may 
be  said  to  have  been  di- 
vided into  two  classes, — 
those  who  thought  Thomas 
Jefferson  the  greatest  and 
wisest  of  living  men,  and 
those  who  believed  hint  the 
worst  and  most  dangrerous- 
The  French  Revolution, 
that  great  uprising  of  the 
masses  against  the  oppres- 
sions of  despotic  power, 
had  then  divided  public 
opinion  throughout  the 
whole  civilized  world.  Jef- 
ferson was  at  the  head  of 
the  party  which  sympa- 
thized with  the  common 
people,  and  advocated  theii 
cause.  The  opposite  party, 
shocked    and    horrified   at 

THE  LIBERTY  BELL,  AS   EXHIBITED  AT  THE  NEW  ORLEANS  EXPOSITION.  |;}^g    eXCeSSeS     COmmlttcd   bV 

the  revolutionists  in  France; 
looked  upon  everything  democratic  with  indescribable  fear  and  aversioa 
These  extremes  of  opinion  make  it  difficult,  even  at  this  day,  to  get  a  fair  and 
moderate  opinion  of  Jefferson.  He  is  either  a  fiend  incarnate  or  an  angel  of 
light.  But  whether  the  principles  for  which  he  stood  be  approved  or  con- 
demned, their  success  at  least  cannot  be  denied.  Jefferson  was  the  pioneer 
of  democracy,   the  apostle  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  common  people,  which 

59 


6o  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

from  his  time  to  the  present  has  become  every  year  more  firmly  rooted  in 
American  poHtics  ;  and  whether  it  be  for  good  or  ill,  it  is  for  this  that  he  will  be 
remembered  in  the  centuries  yet  to  come. 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  born  in  1743,  near  the  site  of  the  present  town  of 
Charlottesville,  Virginia.  His  father,  Peter  Jefferson,  owned  a  plantation  of 
fourteen  hundred  acres  called  Shadwell,  from  the  name  of  the  parish  in  London 
where  his  wife  was  born.  His  home  was  literally  hewn  out  of  the  wilderness. 
There  were  but  few  white  settlers  within  many  miles  of  the  mansion  which  con- 
sisted of  a  spacious  story  and  a  half  cottage-house.  A  wide  hall  and  four  large 
rooms  occupied  the  lower  floor.  Above  these  there  were  good  chambers  and  a 
spacious  garret.  Two  huge  outside  chimneys  contributed  to  the  picturesque 
aspect  of  the  mansion.  It  was  delightfully  situated  upon  a  gentle  swell  of  land 
on  the  slopes  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  and  commanded  a  sublime  prospect  of  far- 
reachinof  mountains  and  forests. 

Thomas  was  naturally  of  a  serious,  pensive,  reflective  turn  of  mind.  From 
the  time  he  was  five  years  of  age  he  was  kept  diligently  at  school  under  the  best 
teachers.  He  was  a  general  favorite  with  both  teachers  and  scholars.  In  the  year 
1760  he  entered  William  and  Mary  College.  Williamsburg  was  then  the  seat 
of  the  colonial  court,  and  the  abode  of  fashion  and  splendor.  Young  Jefferson 
lived  in  college  somewhat  expensively,  keeping  horses,  and  much  caressed 
by  gay  society.  Still  he  was  earnestly  devoted  to  his  studies  and  irreproachable  ^ 
in  his  morals. 

In  1767  he  entered  upon  the  practice  of  the  law.  His  thoroughly  disci- 
plined mind,  ample  stores  of  knowledge,  and  polished  address,  were  rapidly 
raisine  him  to  distinction,  when  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  introduced  him 
to  loftier  spheres  of  responsibility.  He  had  been  but  a  short  time  admitted  to 
the  bar  ere  he  was  chosen  by  his  fellow-citizens  to  a  seat  in  the  Legislature  of 
Virginia.  This  was  in  1769.  Jefferson  was  then  the  largest  slaveholder  in  the 
house.  It  is  a  remarkable  evidence  of  his  foresight,  his  moral  courage,  and  the 
love  of  liberty  which  inspired  him,  that  he  introduced  a  bill  empowering  slave- 
holders to  manumit  their  slaves  if  they  wished  to  do  so.  Slavery  caught  the 
alarm.      The  proposition  was  rejected  by  an  overwhelming  vote. 

In  1772  he  married  Mrs.  Martha  Skelton,  a  very  beautiful,  wealthy,  and 
highly  accomplished  young  widow.  She  brought  to  him,  as  her  munificent 
dowry,  forty  thousand  acres  of  land,  and  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  slaves. 
He  thus  became  one  of  the  largest  slaveholders  in  Virginia;  and  yet  he  labored 
with  all  his  energies  for  the  abolition  of  slavery;  declaring  the  institution  to  be 
a  curse  to  the  master,  a  curse  to  the  slave,  and  an  offense  in  the  sight  of  God. 

In  1775  Jefferson  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Continental  Congress,  and 
in  June  of  that  year  he  left  Williamsburg  to  take  his  seat  in  the  Congress 
at    Philadelphia.      He  was   the   youngest  member   in  the   body  but  one.      His 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  WAR.  6r 

reputation  as  a  writer  had  preceded  him,  and  he  immediately  took  a  conspicu- 
ous stand,  though  he  seldom  spoke.  The  native  suavity  of  Jefferson,  his  mod- 
esty, and  the  frankness  and  force  with  which  he  expressed  his  views  captivated 
even  his  opponents.      It  is  said  that  he  had  not  an  enemy  in  Congress. 

WRITING    THE    GREAT    DECLARATION. 

When  the  time  came  for  drafting  the  "  Declaration  of  Independence,"  that 
great  task  was  committed  to  Jefferson.  Franklin  and  Adams  suggested  a  few 
changes  before  it  wa^  submitted  to  Congress.  The  Declaration  passed  a  fiery 
ordeal  of  criticism.  For  three  days  the  debate  continued.  Mr.  Jefferson  opened 
not  his  lips.  John  Adams  was  the  great  champion  of  the  Declaration  on  the 
floor.  One  may  search  all  the  ages  to  find  a  more  solemn,  momentous  event  than 
the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  was  accompanied  with 
prayer  to  Almighty  God.  Silence  pervaded  the  room  as  one  after  another 
afffxed  his  name  to  that  document,  which  brought  down  upon  him  the  implacable 
hate  of  the  mightiest  power  upon  the  globe,  and  which  doomed  him  inevitably  to 
the  scaffold,  should  the  feeble  colonies  fail  in  the  unequal  struggle. 

In  1779,  Mr.  Jefferson  was  chosen  governor  of  Virginia.  He  was  then 
thirty-six  years  of  age.  The  British  were  now  preparing  to  strike  their  heaviest 
blows  upon  the  South.  Georgia  had  fallen  helpless  into  the  hands  of  the  foe  ; 
South  Carolina  was  invaded,  and  Charleston  threatened.  At  one  time  the 
British  of^cer  Tarleton,  sent  a  secret  expedition  to  Monticello  to  capture  the 
governor.  Scarcely  five  minutes  elapsed  after  the  hurried  escape  of  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son and  his  family  ere  his  mansion  was  in  the  possession  of  the  British  troops. 
A  detachment  of  the  army  of  Cornwallis,in  their  march  north  from  the  Carolinas, 
seized  also  another  plantation  which  he  owned  on  the  James  river.  The  foe 
destroyed  all  his  crops,  burnt  his  barns  and  fences,  drove  off  the  cattle,  seized 
the  serviceable  horses,  cut  the  throats  of  thje  colts,  and  left  the  whole  plantation 
a  smouldering,  blackened  waste.  Twenty-seven  slaves  were  also  carried  off. 
"  Had  he  carried  off  the  slaves,"  says  Jefferson  with  characteristic  magnanimity, 
"to  give  them  freedom,  he  would  have  done  right." 

The  English  ministry  were  now  getting  tired  of  the  war.  The  opposition 
in  Parliament  had  succeeded  in  carrying  a  resolution  on  the  4th  of  March,  1782, 
"  That  all  those  who  should  advise,  or  by  any  means  attempt,  the  further  prose- 
cution of  offensive  war  in  America,  should  be  considered  as  enemies  of  their 
king  and  countr}^"  This  popular  decision  overcame  the  obstinacy  of  the  king, 
and  he  was  compelled  to  make  overtures  for  peace. 

Mr.  Jefferson  had  wonderful  power  of  winning  men  to  his  opinions,  while 
he  scrupulously  avoided  all  controversy.  The  following  extract  from  a  letter  to 
his  grandson  brings  clearly  to  light  this  trait  in  his  character  : — 

"  In  stating  prudential  rules  for  our  government  in  society,  I  must  not  omit 


62 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 


the  important  one  of  never  entering  into  dispute  or  argument  with  another.  I 
never  yet  saw  an  instance  of  one  of  two  disputants  convincing  the  other  by 
argument ;  I  have  seen  many,  of  their  getting  warm,  becoming  rude,  and  shoot- 
ing one  another.     Conviction  is  the  effect  of  our  own  dispassionate  reasoning, 


INDEPENDENCE  HALL,  PHILADELPHIA. 


either  in  solitude  or  weighing  within  ourselves  dispassionately  what  we  hear 
from  others,  standing  uncommitted  in  argument  ourselves.  It  was  one  of  the 
rules,  \rhich,  above  all  others,  made  Dr,  Frauklui  the  most  amiable  of  men  in 
society,  'never  to  contradigt  anybody.'" 


RETURN  FROM  FRANCE.  63 

In  May,  1784,  Congress  appointed  Mr.  Jefferson  to  act  as  minister  with 
Mr.  Adams  and  Dr.  Franklin  in  negotiating  treaties  of  commerce  with  foreign 
nations.  Leaving  two  daughters  with  their  aunt,  he  took  his  eldest  daughter 
Martha  with  him  and  sailed  for  Europe.  After  a  delightful  voyage  he  reached 
Paris  on  the  6th  of  August.  Here  he  placed  his  daughter  at  school,  and,  meet- 
ing his  colleagues  at  Passy,  engaged  vigorously  with  them  in  accomplishing  the 
object  of  his  mision.  Dr.  Franklin,  now  aged  and  infirm,  obtained  permission 
to  return  home  from  his  embassy  to  France.  His  genial  character,  combined 
with  his  illustrious  merit,  had  won  the  love  of  the  French  people  ;  and  he  was 
unboundedly  popular  with  both  peasant  and  prince.  Such  attentions  were 
lavished  upon  him  in  his  journey  from  Paris  to  the  coast,  that  it  was  almost  an 
ovation.  It  was,  indeed,  a  delicate  matter  to  step  into  the  position  which  had 
been  occupied  by  one  so  enthusiastically  admired.  Few  men  could  have  done 
this  so  gracefully  as  did  Jefferson. 

"You  replace  Monsieur  Franklin,  I  hear,"  said  the  celebrated  French 
minister,  the  Count  de  Vergennes.  "I  succeed  him,"  was  the  prompt  reply: 
"no  man  can  replace  him." 

SECRETARY   OF    STATE. 

In  September,  1789,  Jefferson  returned  with  his  daughter  to  America. 
Immediately  upon  his  return  from  France,  Washington  wrote  to  him  in  the  mo'st 
flattering  terms,  urging  upon  him  a  seat  in  his  cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State. 
After  some  conference  he  accepted  the  appointment.  His  eldest  daughter, 
Martha,  was  married  on  the  23d  of  February,  1790,  to  Colonel  Thomas  M. 
Randolph.  A  few  days  after  the  wedding,  on  the  ist  of  March,  Mr.  Jefferson 
set  out  for  New  York,  which  was  then  the  seat  of  government.  He  went  by 
way  of  Richmond  and  Alexandria.  The  roads  were  horrible.  At  the  latter 
place  he  took  a  stage,  sending  his  carriage  round  by  water,  and  leading  his 
horses.  Through  snow  and  mud,  their  speed  seldom  exceeded  three  or  four 
miles  an  hour  by  day,  and  one  mile  an  hour  by  night.  A  fortnight,  of  great 
fatigue,  was  consumed  in  the  journey.  Occasionally  Jefferson  relieved  the 
monotony  of  the  dreary  ride  by  mounting  his  led  saddle-horse.  At  Philadel- 
phia he  called  upon  his  friend  Benjamin  Franklin,  then  in  his  last  illness. 

The  American  Revolution  did  not  originate  in  hostility  to  a  monarchical 
form  of  government,  but  in  resisting  the  oppressions  which  that  government 
was  inflicting  upon  the  American  people.  Consequently,  many  persons,  who 
were  most  active  in  the  Revolution,  would  have  been  very  willing  to  see  an 
independent  monarchy  established  here.  But  Mr.  Jefferson  had  seen  so  much 
of  the  pernicious  influence  of  kings  and  courts  in  Europe  that  he  had  become 
an  intense  republican.  Upon  his  arrival  in  New  York  he  was  much  surprised 
at  the  freedom  wi'ch  which  many  persons  advocated  a  monarchical  government 
He  writes,-^ 


64 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 


*'  I  cannot  describe  the  wonder  and  mortification  with  which  the  table  con- 
versation filled  me.  Politics  were  the  chief  topic  ;  and  a  preference  of  a  kingly 
over  a  republican  government  was  evidently  the  favorite  sentiment.  An  apos- 
tate I  could  not  be,  nor  yet  a  hypocrite  ;  and  I  found  myself,  for  the  most  part, 
tke  only  advocate  on  the  republican  side  of  the  question,  unless  among  the 
guests  there  chanced  to  be  some  member  of  that  party  from  the  legislative 
houses." 

President  Washington  watched  with  great  anxiety  the  rising  storm,  and  did 
all  he  could  to  quell  its  fury.  His  cabinet  was  divided.  General  Hamilton, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  was  leader  of  the   so-called   Federal   party.     Mr, 


STAGE-COACH    OF   JEFFERSON'S    TIME. 

Jefferson,  Secretary  of  State,  was  leader  of  the  Republican  party.  On  the  30th 
of  September,  1792,  as  he  was  going  from  Monticello  to  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment, he  stopped,  as  usual,  at  Mount  Vernon,  and  spent  a  night  with  President 
Washington.  Mr.  Jefferson  makes  the  following  record  in  his  note-book  of  this 
interview,  which  shows  conclusively  that  President  Washington  did  not  agree 
with  Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  belief  that  there  was  a  strong  monarchical*  party  in  this 
country : — 

"The  President,"  he  writes,  "expressed  his  concern  at  the  difference  which 
he  found  to  subsist  between  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  myself,  of  which, 
he  said,  he  had  not  been  aware.  He  knew,  indeed,  that  there  was  a  marked 
difference  in  our  political  sentiments  ;  but  he  had  never  suspected  it  had  gone 


DISPUTES    WITH  HAMILTON.  65 

on  far  in  producing  a  personal  difference,  and  he  wished  he  could  be  the  mediator 
to  put  an  end  to  it ;  that  he  thought  it  important  to  preserve  the  check  of  my 
opinions  in  the  administration,  in  order  to  keep  things  in  their  proper  channel, 
and  prevent  them  from  going  too  far ;  that,  as  to  the  idea  of  transforming  this 
governvie7it  into  a  inonarcJiy,  he  did  not  believe  there  were  ten  men  in  the  United 
States,  whose  opinions  were  worth  attention,  who  entertained  such  a  thong ht!' 

Some  important  financial  measures  which  were  proposed  by  Mr.  Hamilton, 
Mr.  Jefferson  violently  opposed.  They  were,  however,  sustained  by  the  cabinet^ 
adopted  by  both  houses  of  the  legislature,  and  approved  by  the  President.  The 
enemies  of  Mr.  JefTerson  now  pressed  him  w^ith  the  charge  of  indelicacy  in  hold- 
ing office  under  a  government  whose  leading  measures  he  opposed.  Bitter  was 
the  warfare  waged  between  the  two  hostile  secretaries.  Hamilton  accused 
Jefferson  of  lauding  the  constitution  in  public,  while  in  private  he  had  admitted 
that  it  contained  those  imperfections  of  want  of  power  which  Hamilton  laid  to  its 
charge. 

The  President  seems  to  have  been  in  accord  with  Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  views 
of  the  importance  of  maintaining  cordial  relations  with  France.  Both  England 
and  Spain  were  then  making  encroachments  upon  us,  very  menacing  in  their 
aspect.  The  President,  in  a  conversation  with  Mr.  Jefferson,  on  the  27th  of 
December,  1792,  urged  the  necessity  of  making  sure  of  the  alliance  with  France 
in  the  event  of  a  rupture  with  either  of  these  powers.  "  There  is  no  nation," 
said  he,  "on  whom  we  can  rely  at  all  times,  but  France."  This  had  long  been 
one  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  policy.  Upon  the  election 
of  President  Washington  to  his  second  term  of  office,  Mr.  Jefferson  wished  to 
retire  from  the  Cabinet.  Dissatisfaction  with  the  measures  of  the  government 
was  doubtless  a  leading  cause.  At  the  earnest  solicitation,  however,  of  the 
President,  he  consented  to  remain  in  his  position,  which  was  daily  becoming 
more  uncomfortable,  until  the  last  of  July,  when  he  again  sent  in  his  resignation. 
But  still  again  President  Washington  so  earnestly  entreated  him  to  remain,  that, 
very  reluctantly,  he  consented  to  continue  in  office  until  the  close  of  the  year. 

Every  day  the  political  horizon  was  growing  more  stormy.  All  Europe 
was  m  the  blaze  of  war.  England,  the  most  powerful  monarchy  on  the  globe, 
was  straining  every  nerve  to  crush  the  French  Revolution.  The  haughty  course 
which  the  British  government  pursued  toward  the  United  States  had  exasper- 
ated even  the  placid  Washington.  He  wrote  to  General  Hamilton  on  the  31st 
of  August,  1 794  : — 

"  By  these  high-handed  measures  of  that  government,  and  the  outrageous 
and  insulting  conduct  of  its  officers,  it  would  seem  next  to  impossible  to  keep 
peace  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain." 

Even  John  Adams  became  aroused.  Two  years  after,  he  wrote,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  cool  treatniient  which  his  son,  John  Ouincy  Adams,  had  received  in 


66         •  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 


\ 


England  :  "  1  am  glad  of  it ;  for  I  would  not  have  my  son  go  as  far  as  Mr. 
Jay,  and  affirm  the  friendly  disposition  of  that  country  to  this.  I  know  better. 
I  know  their  jealousy,  envy,  hatred,  and  revenge,  covered  under  pretended 
contempt."  Jefferson's  slumbering  energies  were  electrified  ;  he  wrote  fiery 
letters,  and  by  his  conversational  eloquence  moved  all  who  approached  him. 

A  new  presidential  election  came  on.  John  Adams  was  the  Federal  can- 
diate  ;  Thomas  Jefferson  the  Republican.  It  does  not  appear  that  Mr.  Jefferson 
was  at  all  solicitous  of  being  elected.  Indeed,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Madison,  "There 
is  nothing  I  so  anxiously  hope  as  that  my  name  may  come  out  either  second  or 
third  ;  as  the  last  would  leave  me  at  home  the  whole  of  the  year,  and  the  other 
two-thirds  of  it."  Alluding  to  the  possibility  that  "the  representatives  maybe 
divided,"  he  makes  the  remarkable  declaration,  of  the  sincerity  of  which  no  one 
who  knows  the  man  can  doubt,  "This  is  a  difficulty  from  which  the  Constitution 
has  provided  no  issue.  It  is  both  my  duty  and  inclination,  therefore,  to  relieve 
the  embarrassment,  should  it  happen  ;  and,  in  that  case  I  pray  you,  and  autho- 
rize you  fully,  to  solicit  on  my  behalf  that  Mr.  Adams  may  be  preferred.  He 
has  always  been  my  senior  from  the  commencement  of  our  public  life  ;  and,  the 
expression  of  the  public  will  being  equal,  this  circumstance  ought  to  give  him  ^ 
the  preference." 

As  the  result  of  the  election,  Mr.  Adams  became  President,  and  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson, Vice-President.     This  rendered  it  necessary  for  him  to  leave  Monticello| 
for  a  few  months  each  year  to  attend  the  sessions  of  Congress.     His  numerous  ' 
letters  to  his  children   show   how  weary  he  had  become  of  party  strife,  with 
what  reluctance  he  left  his  home,  with  what  joy  he  returned  to  it. 

In  June,  1800,  Congress  moved  from  Philadelphia  to  Washington.  The  , 
new  seat  of  government,  literally  hewn  out  of  the  wilderness,  was  a  dreary  place,  I 
Though  for  twelve  years  workmen  had  been  employed  in  that  lonely,  uninhab- ' 
ited,  out-of-the-way  spot,  In  putting  up  the  public  buildings,  there  was  nothing  [ 
as  yet  finished;  and  vast  piles  of  stone  and  brick  and  mortar  were  scattered', 
at  great  distances  from  each  other,  with  swamps  or  sand-banks  intervening. 

Mrs.  John  Adams,  who  had  seen  the  residences  of  royalty  in  Europe, — 
Buckingham  Palace,  Versailles,  and  the  Tuileries, — gives  an  amusing  account 
of  their  entrance,  upon  the  splendors  of  the  "  White  House."  In  trying  to  find 
Washington  from  Baltimore,  they  got  lost  in  the  woods.  After  driving  for  some 
time,  bewildered  in  forest  paths,  they  chanced  to  come  upon  a  black  man,  whom^ 
they  hired  to  guide  them  through  the  forest.  "The  house,"  she  writes,  "is; 
upon  a  grand  and  superb  scale,  requiring  about  thirty  servants  to  attend,  and 
keep  the  apartments  in  proper  order.  The  fires  we  are  obliged  to  keep,  to 
secure  us  from  daily  agues,  are  another  very  cheering  comfort ;  but,  surrounded 
with  forests,  can  you  believe  that  wood  is  not  to  be  had,  because  people  cannot 
be  iQund  to  cut  and  cart  it?" 


SIGNING  THE  OKCLARATION  OF  AMERICAN  INDFPENDENCE. 


68    •  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

The  four  years  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  Vice-Presidency  passed  joylessly  away, 
while  the  storm  of  partisan  strife  between  Federalist  and  Republican  was  ever 
growing  hotter.  General  Hamilton,  who  was  a  great  power  in  those  days, 
became  as  much  alienated  from  Mr.  Adams  as  from  Jefferson.  There  was  a 
split  In  the  Federal  party.  A  new  presidential  election  came  on.  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son was  chosen  President ;  and  Aaron  Burr,  Vice-President. 

THE    people's    president. 

The  news  of  the  election  of  Jefferson  was  received  in  most  parts  of  the 
Union  with  the  liveliest  demonstrations  of  joy.  He  was  the  leader  of  the  suc- 
cessful and  rapidly  increasing  party.  His  friends  were  found  in  every  city  and 
village  in  our  land.  They  had  been  taught  to  believe  that  the  triumph  of  the 
opposite  party  would  be  the  triumph  of  aristocratic  privilege  and  of  civil  and 
religious  despotism.  On  the  other  hand,  many  of  the  Federalists  turned  pale 
when  the  tidings  reached  them  that  Thomas  Jefferson  was  President  of  the 
United  States.  Both  the  pulpit  and  the  press  had  taught  them  that  he  was  the 
Incarnation  of  all  evil, — an  infidel,  an  atheist,  a  scoffer  at  all  things  sacred  ;  a 
leveler,  a  revolutionist,  an  advocate  of  mob  government. 

Jefferson  was  exceedingly  simple  in  his  tastes,  having  a  morbid  dislike  of 
all  that  court  etiquette  which  had  disgusted  him  so  much  in  Europe.  Washing- 
ton rode  to  the  halls  of  Congress  in  state,  drawn  by  six  cream-colored  horses. 
Jefferson,  on  the  morning  of  his  inauguration,  rode  on  horseback  to  the  Capitol 
in  a  dress  of  plain  cloth,  without  guard  or  servant,  dismounted  without  assist- 
ance, and  fastened  the  bridle  of  his  horse  to  the  fence.  It  may  be  that  Mr. 
Jefferson  had  allowed  his  mind  to  become  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  con- 
viction that  our  government  was  drifting  towards  monarchy  and  aristocracy, 
that  he  felt  bound  to  set  the  example  of  extreme  democratic  simplicity. 

The  political  principles  of  the  Jeffersonian  party  now  swept  the  country, 
and  Mr.  Jefferson  swayed  an  influence  which  was  never  exceeded  by  Washing- 
ton himself.  Louisiana,  under  which  name  was  then  included  the  whole  territory 
west  of  the  Mississippi  to  the  Pacific,  was  purchased  of  France,  under  his  admin- 
istration, in  the  year  1803,  for  fifteen  millions  of  dollars. 

He  was  now  smitten  by  another  domestic  grief.  In  the  year  1804  his  beau- 
tiful daughter  M^'ria,  whom  he  so  tenderly  loved,  sank  into  the  grave,  leaving 
her  babe  behind  her.  His  eldest  daughter,  Martha,  speaking  of  her  father's 
suffering  under  this  terrible  grief  says, — 

*T  found  him  with  the  Bible  in  his  hands.  He  who  has  been  so  often  and 
so  harshly  accused  of  unbelief, — he,  in  his  hour  of  intense  affliction,  sought  and 
found  consolation  in  the  sacred  volume.  The  comforter  was  there  for  his  true 
heart  and  devout  spirit,  even  though  his  faith  might  not  be  what  the  world  calls 
orthodox," 


SECOND  TERM  AS  PRESIDENT, 


69 


Another  presidential  election  came  in  1804.  Mr.  Jefferson  was  reelected 
President  with  wonderful  unanimity  ;  and  George  Clinton,  Vice-President.  Jef 
ferson  was  sixty-two  years  of  age,  when,  on  the  4th  of  March,  1805,  he  entered 
upon  his  second  term  of  office.  Our  relations  with  England  were  daily  becom 
ing  more  complicated,  from  the  British  demand  of  the  right  to  stop  any  of  our 
ships,  whether  belonging  to  either  the  commercial  or  naval  marine,  and  to  take 
from  them  any  sailors  whom  they  felt  disposed  to  claim  as  British  subjects.  The 
course  England  pursued  rendered  it  certain  that  war  could  not  be  avoided.  Mr. 
Jefferson  humanely  did  everything  in  his  power  to  prevent  the   Indians  from 


FAIRFAX    COURT    HOUSE — A    TYPICAL    VIRGINIA   COURT    HOUSE. 


taking  any  part  in  it  whatever.  The  British,  on  the  contrary,  were  endeavoring 
to  rouse  them  to  deluge  the  frontiers  in  blood.  Strange  as  it  may  now  seem, 
the  measures  of  government  to  redress  these  wrongs  were  virulently  opposed. 
But  notwithstanding  the  strength  and  influence  of  the  opposition  to  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son's administration,  he  was  sustained  by  the  general  voice  of  the  nation. 

In  the  year  1808  Mr.  Jefferson  closed  his  second  term  of  office,  and  James 
Madison  succeeded  him  as  President  of  the  United  States.  In  the  followino 
terms  the  retiring  President  evnresses  to  a  friend  his  feelings  upon  surrenderino- 
the  cares  of  office  : — 


70  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

"  Within  a  few  days  I  retire  to  my  family,  my  books,  and  farms ;  and, 
having-  gained  the  harbor  myself,  I  shall  look  on  my  friends,  still  buffeting  the 
storm,  with  anxiety  indeed,  but  not  with  envy.  Never  did  a  prisoner,  released 
from  his  chains,  feel  such  relief  as  I  shall  on  shaking  off  the  shackles  of  power. 
Nature  intended  me  for  the  tranquil  pursuits  of  science  by  rendering  them  my 
supreme  delight ;  but  the  enormities  of  the  times  in  which  I  have  lived  have 
forced  me  to  take  a  part  in  resisting  them,  and  to  commit  myself  on  the  boister- 
ous ocean  of  political  passions.  I  thank  God  for  the  opportunity  of  retiring 
from  them  without  censure,  and  carrying  with  me  the  most  consoling  proofs  of 
public  approbation." 

HOME    LIFE    AND    HOSPITALITY. 

Jefferson's  subsequent  life  at  Monticello  was  very  similar  to  that  of  Wash- 
ington at  Mount  Vernon.  His  mornings  he  devoted  to  his  numerous  corre- 
spondence ;  from  breakfast  to  dinner  he  was  in  the  shops  and  over  the  farms  ; 
from  dinner  to  dark  he  devoted  to  recreation  and  friends  ;  from  dark  to  early 
bedtime  he  read.  He  was  particularly  interested  in  young  men,  advising 
them  as  to  their  course  of  reading.  Several  came  and  took  up  their  resi- 
dence in  the  neighboring  town  of  Charlottesville,  that  they  might  avail  them- 
selves of  his  library,  which  was  ever  open  for  their  use. 

Toward  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  from  a  series  of  misfortunes,  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  became  deeply  involved  in  debt,  so  that  it  was  necessary  for  him  to 
sell  a  large  portion  of  his  estate.  He  was  always  profuse  in  his  hospitality. 
Whole  families  came  in  their  coaches  with  their  horses, — fathers  and  mothers, 
boys  and  girls,  babies  and  nurses, — and  remained  three  or  even  six  months. 
One  family  of  six  persons  came  from  Europe,  and  m.adea  visitof  ten  months. 
After  a  short  tour  they  returned;  and  remained  six  months  longer.  Every 
day  brought  its  contingent  of  guests.  Such  hospitality  would  speedily  con- 
sume a  larger  fortune  than  Mr.  Jefferson  possessed.  His  daughter,  Mrs. 
Randolph,  was  the  presiding  lady  of  this  immense  establishment.  The  domes- 
tic service  required  thirty-seven  house  servants.  Mrs.  Randolph,  upon  being 
asked  what  was  the  greatest  number  of  guests  she  had  ever  entertained  any 
one  night,  replied,   "  she  believed  fifty." 

In  the  winter  Mr.  Jefferson  had  some  little  repose  from  the  crowd  of  visitors. 
He  then  enjoyed,  in  the  highest  possible  degree,  all  that  is  endearing  in  domes 
tic  life.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  love  with  which  he  was  cherished  by 
his  grandchildren.  One  of  them  writes,  in  a  letter  overflowing  with  the  gush- 
ing of  a  loving  heart,  "  My  Bible  came  from  him,  my  Shakespeare,  my  first 
writing-table,  my  first  handsome  writing-desk,  my  first  Leghorn  hat,  my  first 
silk  dress :  what,  in  short,  of  all  my  treasures  did  not  come  from  him  ?  My 
sisters,  according  to  their  wants  and  tastes,  were  equally  thought  of,  equally 
provided  for.    Our  grandfather  seemed  to  read  our  hearts,  to  see  our  individual 


LIFR  AT  MONTICELLO. 


71 


wishes,  to  be   our  good  genius,  to  wave  the  fairy  wand  to  brighten  our  young 
lives  by  his  goodness  and  his  gifts," 

Another  writes:  "I  cannot  describe  the  feelings  of  veneration,  admiration, 
and  love  that  existed  in  my  heart  toward  him.  I  looked  on  him  as  beine  too 
great  and  good  for  my  comprehension  ;  and  yet  I  felt  no  fear  to  approach  him, 
and  be  taught  by  him  some  of  the  childish  sports  I  delighted  in.  Not  one  of 
us,  in  our  wildest  moods,  ever  placed  a  foot  on  one  of  the  garden-beds,  for  that 
would  violate  one  of  his  rules  ;  and  yet  I  never  heard  him  utter  a  harsh  word  to 
one  of  us,  or  speak  in  a  raised  tone  of  voice,  or  use  a  threat." 

In  181 2  a  perfect  reconciliation  took  place  between  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr. 
Jefferson  ;*  the  latter  very  handsomely  and  magnanimously  making  the  first 
advances.  This  friendship,  which  was  kept  up  by  a  constant  interchange  of 
letters,  continued  unabated  until  their  death, — on  the  same  day,  and  almost  at 
the  same  hour. 

In  a  letter  dated 
March  21,  1 819,  he  writes 
to  Dr.  Vine  Utley,  "I 
never  go  to  bed  without 
an  hour  or  half  an  hour's 
previous  reading  of  some- 
thing moral  whereon  to 
ruminate  in  the  intervals 
of  sleep."  The  book  from 
which  he  oftenest  read  was 
a  collection  which  he  had 
made  by  cutting  such  pas- 
saq-es  from  the  Evanee- 
lists  as  came  directly  from 
the  lips  of  the  Saviour.  These  he  arranged  in  a  blank-book.  Jefferson  writes  to 
a  friend  :  "A  more  beautiful  or  precious  morsel  of  ethics  I  have  never  seen :  it  is 
a  document  in  proof  that  I  am  a  real  Christian  ;  that  is  to  say,  a  disciple  of  the 
doctrines  of  Jesus."  This  book  Mr.  Jefferson  prepared  evidently  with  great 
care.  It  is  a  very  full  compend  of  the  teachings  of  our  Saviour.  It  was  entitled 
"The  Philosophy  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth."  He  also  prepared  a  second  volume, 
which  he  had  bound  in  morocco,  in  a  handsome  octave  volume,  and  which  he 
labeled  on  the  back,  "  Morals  of  Jesus."  It  is  a  litde  remarkable  that  Mr. 
Jefferson  should  have  made  these  collections  so  secretly  that  none  of  the  mem- 
bers of  his  family  knew  even  of  the  existence  of  the  books  until  after  his  death. 

The  year  1826  opened  gloomily  upon  Mr.  Jefferson.  He  was  very  infirm, 
and  embarrassed  by  debts,  from  which  he  could  see  but  litde  hope  of  extrica- 
tion.    The  indorsement  for  a  friend  had  placed  upon  him  an  additional  twenty 


ONE  SIXTH  OFA.SPANIS 
MiUU  jyoUar.'orlhcValiW 
thereof  Cn  GoldorSilver 
/o^<:  given  in  exchange  at 

Tursuani  to    ACT     oj 

A.SSE'MB1L.Y 


O^ 


2^. 


^^^ 


VIRCJINIACURHET^CY- 


IBggM 


72  '  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

thousand  dollars  of  debt.  He  applied  to  the  Legislature  for  permission  to  dis 
pose  of  a  large  portion  of  his  property  by  lottery,  hoping  thus  to  realize  a  sum 
sufficient  to  pay  his  debts,  and  to  leave  enough  to  give  him  a  competence  for 
his  few  remaining  days.  Though  opposed  to  all  gambling,  he  argued,  in  sup- 
port of  his  petition,  that  lotteries  were  not  immoral.  He  wrote  to  a  friend, 
that,  if  the  Legislature  would  grant  him  the  indulgence  he  solicited,  "  I  can  save 
the  house  of  Monticello  and  a  farm  adjoining  to  end  my  days  in,  and  bury  my 
bones  ;  if  not,  I  must  sell  house  and  all  here,  and  carry  my  family  to  Bed* 
ford,  where  I  have  not  even  a  log  hut  to  put  my  head  into." 

To  Mr.  Jefferson's  great  gratification,  the  lottery  bill  finally  passed.  But, 
all  over  the  country,  friends,  who  appreciated  the  priceless  value  of  the  services 
which  he  had  rendered  our  nation,  began  to  send  to  him  tokens  of  their  love. 
The  mayor  of  New  York,  Philip  Hone,  sent  him,  collected  from  a  few  friends, 
eight  thousand  five  hundred  dollars  ;  from  Philadelphia,  five  thousand  dollars 
were  sent ;  from  Baltimore,  three  thousand  dollars  ;  and  one  or  two  thousand 
more  were  sent  from  other  sources.  These  testimonials,  like  sunshine  breaking 
through  the  clouds,  dispelled  the  gloom  which  had  been  so  deeply  gathering 
around  his  declining  day.  Very  rapidly  he  was  now  sinking.  His  steps 
became  so  feeble  that  with  difficulty  he  could  totter  ab^cit  tne  nouse. 

There  was  something  peculiarly  gentle  and  touching  in  his  whole  demeanor. 
His  good-night  kiss,  his  loving  embrace,  his  childlike  simplicity  and  tenderness, 
often  brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  those  whose  privilege  it  was  to  minister  to  his 
wants.  It  was  evident  that  he  was  conscious  that  the  hour  of  his  departure  was 
at  hand.  Lie  was  exceedingly  careful  to  avoid  making  any  trouble,  and  was  far 
more  watchful  for  the  comfort  of  those  around  him  than  for  his  own.  His  pas- 
sage was  very  slow  down  into  the  vale  of  death.  To  one  who  expressed  the 
opinion  that  he  seemed  a  little  better,  he  replied, — ■ 

"  Do  not  imagine  for  a  moment  that  I  feel  the  smallest  solicitude  about  the 
result.  I  am  like  an  old  watch,  with  a  pinion  worn  out  here  and  a  wheel  there, 
until  it  can  oro  no  lono-er." 

On  Monday  evening,  the  3d  of  July,  he  awoke  about  ten  o'clock  from 
troubled  sleep,  and,  thinking  it  morning,  remarked,  "  This  is  the  4th  of  July." 
Immediately  he  sank  away  again  into  slumber.  As  the  night  passed  slowly 
away,  all  saw  that  he  was  sinking  in  death.  There  was  silence  in  the  death- 
chamber.  The  mysterious  separation  of  the  soul  from  the  body  was  painlessly 
taking  place.  About  noon,  July  4th,  1826,  the  last  breath  left  the  body,  and 
the  great  statesman  and  patriot  was  no  more. 


ANDREW  JACKSON, 


THE     HERO     OE    THE    WAR     OE    1812,    AND     EOEULAR 

PRESIDENT. 


SOME  men  are  remembered  for  what  they 
do ;  others  for  what  they  are.  To  the 
latter  class  belongs  Andrew  Jackson. 
No  American  has  left  a  more  distinct 
impress  of  himself  on  the  popular  mind  ; 
no  man  of  his  time  is  so  well  known, 
and  so  vividly  remembered.  He  may 
be  loved  or  hated,  but  he  cannot  be  for- 
gotten. And  this  is  not  because  he  was 
twice  President,  nor  because  he  threat- 
ened to  hang  the  South  Carolina  nulli- 
fiers,  nor  because  he  made  war  on  the 
United  States  Bank,  nor  because  he 
introduced  the  spoils  system.  It  is 
because  he  was  Andrew  Jackson. 

No  greater  contrast  could  be  found 
than  that  between  his  administration 
and  the  preceding  one  of  John  Quincy 
Adams,  Adams  was  the  model  official. 
His  ambition  was  to  make  his  adminis- 
Under  It  the  people  prospered  ;  the  public  business 
was  admirably  done  ;  the  country  grew  and  expanded.  But  amid  all  this  his 
personality  was  almost  completely  sunk.  Few  ever  thought  of  John  Quincy 
Adams.  When  Jackson  became  President,  this  was  reversed.  Good  men  were 
turned  out  and  bad  men  were  put  in.  The  public  business  was  sacrificed  to 
personal  and  party  advantage.  The  rights  and  powers  of  other  branches  of 
the  government  were  usurped,  and  tyranny  of  the  grossest  kind  came  to  be  a 
matter  of  course.  Amid  all  this  the  single  figure  was  Andrew  Jackson.  He 
was  the  person  whom  every  one  saw,  of  whom  all  thought  and  talked  ;  and  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  no  other  President,  down  to  the  time  of  Lincoln,  is  so  well 
remembered  by  the  common  people. 

5S&D  75 


tration  a  perfect  machine. 


76  ANDREW  JACKSON. 

Jackson  was  born  in  the  northwestern  corner  of  South  CaroHna,  in  1767. 
His  father,  an  Irishman  of  Scotch  descent,  who  had  only  two  years  before  come 
to  this  country,  died  before  his  birth,  leaving  his  mother  almost  utterly  destitute, 
with  the  care  of  a  large  family.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  trials  and  hardships 
of  his  youth.  When  he  was  only  thirteen,  the  British  ravaged  South  Carolina, 
killed  his  oldest  brother,  Hugh,  and  captured  Andrew  and  his  brother  Robert, 
carrying  them  off  with  others  to  Camden,  forty  miles  distant  from  their  home. 
The  captives  were  not  allowed  food  or  even  water  on  the  way  ;  they  were  thrown 
into  a  wretched  prison-pen,  without  beds,  medical  attendance,  or  any  means  of 
dressing  their  wounds.  They  were  kept  on  miserable  food,  and,  to  crown  all, 
smallpox  broke  out  among  them.     Dying  and  dead  lay  on  the  ground  together. 

Their  mother  came  to  the  rescue  of  her  boys  ;  she  obtained  their  exchange, 
took  them  home,  and  nursed  them  ;  but  Robert  died  in  two  days,  and  Mrs. 
Jackson  herself  fell  a  victim  to  the  disease.  Thus  at  fourteen  years  of  age 
Jackson  was  left  alone  in  the  world,  without  father,  mother,  or  brother,  and 
without  a  dollar  to  call  his  own. 

Before  Andrew  had  fully  recovered  his  strength,  he  entered  a  shop  to  learn 
the  trade  of  a  saddler;  but  he  became  a  wild,  reckless,  lawless  boy.  He  drank, 
gambled,  fought  cocks,  and  was  regarded  as  about  the  worst  character  that 
could  anywhere  be  found.  Soon  he  began  to  think  of  a  profession,  and  decided 
to  study  law.  With  a  very  slender  purse,  and  on  the  back  of  a  fine  horse,  he 
set  out  for  Salisbury,  N.  C,  a  distance  of  about  seventy-five  miles,  where  he 
entered  the  law  office  of  Mr.  McCay. 

At  the  age  of  twenty  Jackson  was  a  tall  young  man,  standing  six  feet  and 
an  inch  in  his  stockings.  He  was  very  slender,  but  remarkably  dignified  and 
graceful  in  his  manners,  an  exquisite  horseman,  and  developing,  amidst  his  pro- 
fanity and  numerous  vices,  a  vein  of  rare  magnanimity.  His  temper  was  fiery 
in  the  extreme  ;  but  it  was  said  that  no  man  knew  better  than  Andrew  Jackson 
when  to  get  angry,  and  when  not.  He  was  fond  of  all  rough  adventures,  wild 
riding,  camping  out ;  loved  a  horse  passionately  ;  and,  though  sagacious  and 
prudent,  was  bold  in  facing  danger.  The  experience  through  which  he  had 
passed  in  the  Revolution  had  made  him  a  very  stanch. republican. 

LIFE    IN    THE    WILDS    OF    TENNESSEE. 

The  whole  of  that  reeion  which  we  now  call  Tennessee  was  then  almost  an 
unexplored  wilderness.  It  was  ranged  by  bands  of  Indians,  who  had  been  so 
outraged  by  vagabonds  among  the  whites  that  they  had  become  bitterly  hostile. 
There  was  a  small  settlement  of  pioneers,  five  hundred  miles  west  of  the  summit 
of  the  Alleghanies,  near  the  present  site  of  Nashville,  on  the  banks  of  the  Cum- 
berland. Andrew  Jackson  was  appointed  public  prosecutor  for  the  remote  dis- 
trict of  Nashville.     It  was  an  office  of  little  honor,  small  emolument,  and  great 


EMIGRATING   TO   TENNESSEE. 


77 


peril.  Few  men  could  be  found  to  accept  it.  Early  in  the  spring  of  1788 
Jackson  joined  a  party  of  emigrants,  who  rendezvoused  at  Morgantown,  the 
last  frontier  settlement  in  North  Carolina.  They  were  all  mounted  on  horse 
back,  with  their  baggage  on  pack-horses.  In  double  file,  the  long  cavalcade 
crossed  the  mountains  by  an  Indian  trail,  which  had  widened  into  a  road. 

Late  in  October,  1788,  this  long  train  of  emigrants  reached  Nashville. 
They  took  with  them  the  exciting  news  that  the  new  Constitution  had  been 
accepted  by  a  majority  of  the  States,  and  that  George  Washington  would 
undoubtedly  be  elected  the  first  President.  It  was  estimated  that  then,  in  this 
outpost  of  civilization,  there  were   scattered,  in  log  huts  clustered  along  the 


A  FAMILIAR  KENTUCKY  SCENE  IN  JACKSON'S  YOUTH. 

banks  of  the  Cumberland,  about  five  thousand  souls.  The  Indians  were  so 
active  in  their  hostilities  that  it  was  not  safe  for  any  one  to  live  far  from  the 
stockade.  Every  man  took  his  rifle  with  him  to  the  field.  Children  could  not 
go  out  to  gather  berries  unless  accompanied  by  a  guard. 

Nashville  had  its  aristocracy.      Mrs.  Donelson  belonged  to  one  of  the  first 

families.    She  was  the  widow  of  Colonel  John  Donelson,  and  lived  in  a  cabin  of 

jhewn  logs,  the  most  commodious  dwelling  in  the  place.     She  had  a  beautiful, 

mirth-loving  daughter,  who  had  married  a  very  uncongenial  Kentuckian,  Lewis 

(Robards,  of  whom  but  little   that  is  good  can  be  said.     She  and  her  husband 

lived  with  her  widowed  mother,  and  Andrew  Jackson  was  received  into  the 


78  ANDREW  JACKSON. 

family  as  a  boarder.  It  was  an  attractive  home  for  him.  Of  the  gay  and  lively 
Mrs.  Robards  it  is  said  that  she  was  then  the  best  story-teller,  the  best  dancer, 
ihe  sprightliest  companion,  the  most  dashing  horsewoman,  in  the  western 
country. 

And  now  Andrew  Jackson  commenced  vigorously  the  practice  of  law.  It 
was  an  important  part  of  his  business  to  collect  debts.  It  required  nerve. 
Many  desperate  men  carried  pistols  and  knives.  During  the  first  seven  years 
of  his  residence  In  those  wilds,  he  traversed  the  almost  pathless  forest  between 
Nashville  and  Jonesborough,  a  distance  of  two  hundred  miles,  twenty-two  times. 
Hostile  Indians  were  constantly  on  the  watch,  and  a  man  was  liable  at  any 
moment  to  be  sliot  down  in  his  own  field.  Andrew  Jackson  was  just  the  man 
for  this  service, — a  wild,  rough,  daring  backwoodsman.  Daily  he  was  making 
hairbreadth  escapes.  He  seemed  to  bear  a  charmed  life.  Boldly,  alone  or 
with  few  companions,  he  traversed  the  forests,  encountering  all  perils,  and 
triumphing  over  all. 

Mrs.  Robards  and  her  husband  lived  unhappily  together.  Before  Jackson's 
arrival,  he  had  once,  from  his  jealous  disposition,  separated  from  her.  Andrew 
Jackson  was  an  exceedingly  polite,  gallant,  fascinating  man.  Captain  Robards 
became  jealous  of  Jackson,  and  treated  Mrs.  Robards  with  great  cruelty.  Jack- 
son decided,  In  consequence,  to  leave  the  house,  and  took  board  in  another 
place.  Soon  after  this,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robards  separated.  The  affair  caused 
Andrew  Jackson  great  uneasiness  ;  for  though  he  knew  that  the  parties  had 
separated  once  before,  and  though  conscious  of  innocence,  he  found  himself  to 
de  the  unfortunate  cause  of  the  present  scandal. 

Captain  Robards  applied  to  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  for  a  bill  of  divorce. 
tt  was  granted  by  an  act  of  the  Legislature,  provided  tJiat  the  Supi^euze  Court 
should  adjudge  that  there  was  caztse  for  such  divorce.  Robards  laid  aside  this 
act  and  did  nothing  for  two  years.  Virginia  was  far  away.  The  transmission 
of  intelligence  was  very  slow.  It  was  announced  In  Nashville  that  Robards  had 
obtained  a  divorce.  This  was  universally  believed.  Influenced  by  this  belief, 
Andrew  Jackson  and  Rachel  Robards  were  married  in  the  fall  of  1791. 

Two  years  after  this,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jackson  learned,  to  their  great  surprise,' 
that  Robards  had  then  only  just  obtained  a  divorce.  Thus  Mr.  Jackson  had,  in 
reality,  been  married  for  two  years  to  another  man's  wife,  though  neither  he  nor 
Mrs.  Jackson  had  been  guilty  of  the  slightest  Intentional  wrong.  To  remedy 
the  irregularity  as  far  as  possible,  a  new  license  was  obtained,  and  the  marriage 
ceremony  was  again  performed. 

It  proved  to  be  a  marriage  of  rare  felicity.  Probably  there  never  was  a 
more  affectionate  union.  However  rough  Mr.  Jackson  might  have  been  abroad, 
he  was  always  gentle  and  tender  at  home  ;  and  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of 
their  lives,  he  treated  Mrs.  Jackson  with  the  most  chivalric  attentions.     He  was 


SENATOR  AND  JUDGE.  79 

always  very  sensitive  upon  the  question  of  his  marriage.  No  one  could  breathe 
a  word  which  reflected  a  suspicion  upon  the  purity  of  this  affair  but  at  the  risk 
of  a  bullet  through  his  brain. 

OLD-FASHIONED    POLITICS. 

In  January,  1796,  the  territory  of  Tennessee  then  containing  nearly  eighty 
thousand  inhabitants,  the  people  met  in  convention  at  Knoxville  to  frame  a 
constitution.  Five  were  sent  from  each  of  the  eleven  counties.  Andrew 
Jackson  was  one  of  the  delegates  from  Davidson  County.  They  met  in  a  shabby 
building  in  a  grove  outside  of  the  city.  It  was  fitted  up  for  the  occasion  at  an 
expense  of  twelve  dollars  and  sixty-two  cents.  The  members  were  entitled  to 
two  dollars  and  a  half  a  day.  They  voted  to  receive  but  a  dollar  and  a  half, 
that  the  other  dollar  might  go  to  the  payment  of  secretary,  printer,  door- 
keeper, etc,  A  constitution  was  formed,  which  was  regarded  as  very  demo- 
cratic ;  and  in  June,  1796,  Tennessee  became  the  sixteenth  State  in  the  Union. 
The  new  State  was  entitled  to  but  one  member  in  the  national  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives. Andrew  Jackson  was  chosen  that  member.  Mounting  his  horse, 
he  rode  to  Philadelphia,  where  Congress  then  held  its  sessions,— a  distance 
of  eight  hundred  miles. 

A  vacancy  chanced  soon  after  to  occur  in  the  Senate,  and  Andrew  Jackson 
was  chosen  United  States  Senator  by  the  State  of  Tennessee.  John  Adams 
was  then  President ;  Thomas  Jefferson,  Vice-President.  Many  years  after,  when 
Mr.  Jefferson  had  retired  from  the  presidential  chair,  and  Andrew  Jackson  was 
candidate  for  the  presidency,  Daniel  Webster  spent  some  days  at  the  home  of 
the  sage  of  Monticello.     He  represents  Mr.  Jefferson  as  saying  : — 

"  I  feel  much  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  seeing  General  Jackson  President. 
He  is  one  of  the  most  unfit  men  I  know  of  for  such  a  place.  He  has  very 
little  respect  for  law  or  constitutions,  and  is,  in  fact,  merely  an  able  military 
chief  His  passions  are  terrible.  When  I  w^as  president  of  the  Senate  he  was 
senator  ;  and  he  could  never  speak  on  account  of  the  rashness  of  his  feelings. 
I  have  seen  him  attempt  it  repeatedly,  and  as  often  choke  with  rage.  His 
passions  are  no  doubt  cooler  now.  He  has  been  much  tried  since  I  knew 
him  ;  but  he  is  a  dangerous  man." 

In  1798  Mr.  Jackson  returned  to  Tennessee  and  resigned  his  seat  in  the 
Senate.  Soon  after  he  was  chosen  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  that  State, 
with  a  salary  of  six  hundred  dollars.  This  office  he  held  for  six  years.  It 
is  said  that  his  decisions,  though  sometimes  ungrammatical,  were  generally 
right. 

Judge  Jackson  did  not  enjoy  his  seat  upon  the  bench,  and  renounced  the 
dignity  in  the  summer  of  1804.  About  this  time  he  decided  to  try  his  fortune 
through  trade.     He  purchased  a  stock  of  goods  in  Philadelphia,  seat  them  to 


8o  ANDREW  JACKSON. 

Pittsburgh  by  wagon,  down  the  Ohio  to  Louisville  in  flat-boats,  thence  by 
wagons  or  pack-horses  to  Nashville,  where  he  opened  a  store.  He  lived  about 
thirteen  miles  from  Nashville,  on  a  tract  of  land  of  several  thousand  acres, 
mosdy  uncultivated.  He  used  a  small  block-house  for  his  store,  from  a  narrow 
window  of  which  he  sold  goods  to  the  Indians. 

In  Jackson's  early  Hfe  he  fought  numerous  duels,  and  took  part  in  brawls 
almost  without  number.     One  of  the  most  notorious  of  his  duels  was  one  with 
Charles  Dickenson,  who  was  also  a  lawyer,  and  a  dealer  in  country  produce,  j 
Jackson  challenged  him  and  insisted   upon  an  immediate  fight.     The  meeting  I 
was  appointed  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  Friday,  May  30,  1806.     Dick-  I 
enson  had  a  young  and  beautiful  wife  and  an  infant  child,  and  was  said  to  have 
been  a  very  amiable  man.     They  met  in  a  grove.     Dickenson  got  the  first  fire.  \ 
His  ball  broke  a  rib,  and  glanced,  leaving  a  bad  but  not  dangerous  wound.  ' 
Jackson  then  took  deliberate  aim.     Dickenson,  appalled  by  the  certain   death  . 
which  awaited  him,  recoiled  a  step  or  two.     "  Back  to  the  mark,  sir  !  "  shouted  j 
Jackson's  second.     The  unhappy  man   took  his  stand.     Again  Jackson  raised 
his  pistol  with  calm,  determined  aim,  and   pulled   the  trigger.     The  pistol   did 
not  go  off.     He  examined  it,  and  found  that  it  had  stopped  at  half-cock.     Re~ 
adjusting  it,  he  again  took  cool,  careful  aim,  and  fired.     Dickenson  reeled  and 
fell.     The  ball   had   passed  through    his  body,  just  above  the  hips.     Jackson 
and  his  party  retired,  leaving  the  dying  man  in  the  hands  of  his  friends.     All 
day  long  he  suffered  agony,  and  in  the  evening  died.     The  next  day  his  frantic 
wife,  hurrying  to  his  relief,  met  a  wagon  conveying  back  to  Nashville  his  re- 
mains.    Dickenson  was  a  great  favorite  in  Nashville,  and  his  untimely  death 
excited    profound  sympathy.     For  a  time  this  affair  greatly  injured   General 
Jackson's  popularity.     If  he  ever  felt  any  remorse,  he  never  revealed  it. 

General  Jackson  now  withdrew  from  commercial  pursuits,  which  he  had  not 
found  very  profitable,  and  devoted  himself  to  the  culture  of  his  plantation. 
His  home  was  a  very  happy  one.  Mrs.  Jackson  was  an  excellent  manager,  and 
one  of  the  most  cheerful  and  entertaining  of  companions.  She  had  a  strong 
mind,  much  intelligence,  but  very  little  culture.  They  had  no  children,  but 
adopted  a  son  of  one  of  Mrs.  Jackson's  sisters.  This  boy  became  the  pride, 
the  joy,  the  hope  of  the  general's  life.  Soon  after,  he  received  another  little 
nephew  into  his  family,  whom  he  nurtured  and  educated.  It  is  said  that  this 
wonderfully  irascible  man  was  never  even  impatient  with  wife,  children,  or 
servants. 

A  young  friend  of  Jackson,  by  the  name  of  William  Carroll,  challenged 
Jesse  Benton,  a  younger  brother  of  Colonel  Thomas  H.  Benton,  to  a  duel. 
Jackson,  then  forty-six  years  of  age,  somewhat  reluctantly  acted  as  second  to 
Carroll.  Both  parties  were  wounded,  young  Benton  quite  severely.  This 
roused  the  indignation  of  Colonel  Thomas  H.  Benton,  who  had  conferred  some 


AFFRAY  WITH  THE  BENTONS. 


Si 


signal  favors  on  Jackson,  and  he  vowed  vengeance.  Meeting  the  Beaton 
brothers  soon  after  at  a  Nashville  hotel,  a  bloody  affray  followed,  in  which 
Jackson's  arm  and  shoulder  were  horribly  shattered  by  two  balls  and  a  slug 


THE   INDIAN'S    DECLARATION    OF   WAR. 


from  the  pistol  of  Jesse  Benton.    Jackson's 

wounds  were  very  severe.     While  he  was 

lingering,  haggard  and  wan.  upon  a  bed  of  suffering,  news  came  that  iJie  Indians, 

who  had  combined  under  Tecumseh,  from  Florida  to  the  Lakes,  to  exterminate 

the  white  setders,  were  committing  the  most  awful  ravages.     Decisive  action 


82  ANDREW  JACKSON. 

became  necessary.  General  Jackson,  with  his  fractured  bones  just  beginning  to 
heal,  his  arm  in  a  sling,  and  unable  to  mount  his  horse  without  assistance,  gave 
his  amazing  energies  to  the  raising  of  an  army  to  rendezvous  at  Fayetteville, 
on  the  borders  of  Alabama,  on  the  4th  of  October,  181 3. 

FIGHTING    THE    INDIANS. 

The  Creek  Indians  had  established  a  strong  fort  on  one  of  the  bends  of  the 
Tallapoosa  River,  near  the  centre  of  Alabama,  about  fifty  miles  below  Fort 
Strother.  With  an  army  of  two  thousand  men,  General  Jackson  traversed  the 
pathless  wilderness  in  a  march  of  eleven  days.  He  reached  their  fort,  called 
Tohopeca,  or  Horseshoe,  on  the  27th  of  March,  1814.  The  bend  of  the  river 
inclosed  nearly  one  hundred  acres  of  tangled  forest  and  wild  ravine.  Across 
the  narrow  neck  the  Indians  had  constructed  a  formidable  breastwork  of  logs 
and  brush.  Here  nine  hundred  warriors,  with  an  ample  supply  of  arms  and 
ammunition,  were  assembled. 

The  fort  was  stormed.  The  fight  was  utterly  desperate.  Not  an  Indian 
would  accept  of  quarter.  When  bleeding  and  dying,  they  would  fight  those 
who  endeavored  to  spare  their  lives.  From  ten  in  the  morning  until  dark  the 
battle  rao-ed.  The  carnage  was  awful  and  revolting.  Some  threw  themselves 
into  the  river  ;  but  the  unerring  bullet  struck  their  heads  as  they  swam.  Nearly 
every  one  of  the  nine  hundred  warriors  was  killed.  A  few  probably,  in  the 
nio-ht,  swam  the  river  and  escaped.  This  ended  the  war.  The  power  of  the 
Creeks  was  broken  forever.  This  bold  plunge  into  the  wilderness,  with  its  ter- 
rific slaughter,  so  appalled  the  savages,  that  the  haggard  remnants  of  the  bands 
came  to  the  camp,  begging  for  peace. 

This  closing  of  the  Creek  war  enabled  us  to  concentrate  our  militia  upon 
the  British,  who  were  the  allies  of  the  Indians.  Immediately,  on  the  31st  of 
May,  Jackson  was  appointed  major-general  in  the  army  of  the  United  States. 
This  crave  him  an  income  of  between  six  and  seven  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and 
made  him,  for  those  times,  a  rich  man.  No  man  of  less  resolute  will  than  Gen- 
eral Jackson  could  have  conducted  this  Indian  campaign  to  so  successful  an 
issue.  Through  the  whole  Indian  campaign  he  suffered  terribly  from  the  wounds 
and  debility  occasioned  by  his  senseless  feCid  with  Colonel  Benton.  He  was 
pale  and  haggard  and  pain-worn,  often  enduring  the  extreme  of  agony.  Not 
many  men,  suffering  as  he  did,  would  have  been  out  of  the  sick  chamber. 

Immediately  upon  the  fall  of  Napoleon,  in  18 14,  the  British  Cabinet  decided 
to  strike  America  a  crushing  blow.  It  was  their  plan  to  take  New  Orleans,  lay 
all  our  seaport  towns  in  ashes,  annihilate  our  navy,  and,  by  holding  the  Atlantic, 
the  Mississippi,  and  the  Lakes,  to  imprison  us  in  our  forests.  The  British  were 
at  Pensacola  and  Appalachicola,  dispensing  arms  to  the  Indians  in  that  region, 
and  preparing  for  their  grand  naval  and  land  expedition  to  New  Orleans.   Most 


DEFENSE  OP  NEW  ORLEANS. 


83 


of  the  hostile  Indians,  flying  from  the  tremendous  blows  which  General  Jackson 
had  dealt  them,  had  also  taken  refuge  in  Florida.  Jackson,  far  away  in  the 
wilderness,  was  left  to  act  almost  without  instructions.  He  decided  to  take 
the  responsibility,  and  assumed  the  independence  of  a  sovereign. 

The  whole  South  and  West  were  fully  aroused  to  meet  and  repel  the  foe. 
By  the  ist  of  November  General  Jackson  had  in  Mobile  an  army  of  four  thou- 
sand men.  He  resolved  to  march  upon  Pensacola,  where  the  Spaniards  were 
sheltering  our  foes,  and,  as  he  expressed  it,  "  rout  out  the  English."  He 
advanced  upon  Pensacola,  stormed  the  town,  took  possession  of  every  fort,  and 
drove  the  British  fleet  out  to  sea.  Garrisoning  Mobile,  he  moved  his  troops  to 
New  Orleans,  a  distance  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  miles.  General  Jackson 
himself  was  so  feeble  that  he  could  ride  but  seventeen  miles  a  day.  He  reached 
New  Orleans 
the  I  St  of  De- 
cember. New 
Orleans  at  that 
time  contained 
about  twenty 
thousand  in- 
habitants. E\ 
ery  available 
man  in  the 
place  and  coun- 
try near  was 
broucrht  into 
service. 

A     British 

j  fleet     of     sixty 

ships,  many  of 

I  them  of  the  first 

class,  and  which  had  obtained  renown  in  the  naval  conflicts  of  Trafalgar  and  the 
I  Nile,  was  assembled  in  a  spacious  bay  on  the  western  end  of  the  Island  of 
I  Jamaica.  This  fleet,  which  carried  a  thousand  cannon,  was  manned  by  nearly 
j  nine  thousand  soldiers  and  marines,  and  transported  a  land  force  of  ten  thou- 
|Sand  veteran  soldiers,  fresh  from  the  wars  of  Europe,  and  flushed  with  victory 
(Over  Napoleon.  The  fleet  entered  Lake  Borgne,  a  shallow  bay  opening  into 
',  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  near  New  Orleans,  on  the  loth  of  December,  1814.  There 
I  were  five  small  cutters  in  the  lake,  which  were  soon  overpowered  by  the  im 
t  mense  force  of  the  foe.  Unaware  how  feeble  was  General  Jackson's  force, 
I  they  did  not  deem  it  prudent  to  move  upon  the  city  until  they  had  greatly 
(increased  their  numbers.     This  delay  probably  saved  New  Orleans. 


THE    OLD    MAKIGNY    HUUbE,  A    KELIC    OF    THE    WAR    OF    l8l2. 


84  ANDREW  JACKSON. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  23d,  General  Jackson  learned  that 
the  foe,  marching  from  Lake  Borgne,  were  within  a  few  miles  of  the  city.  He 
immediately  collected  his  motley  force  of  young  farmers  and  mechanics,  about 
two  thousand  in  number,  and  marched  to  meet  them.  He  fell  upon  them  im- 
petuously in  a  night  attack,  checked  their  progress,  and  drove  them  back  toward 
their  landing-place.  The  British,  surprised  by  the  fury  of  the  assault,  waited 
for  reinforcements,  which  came  up  in  large  numbers  during  the  night. 

THE    GREAT    VICTORY    AT    NEW    ORLEANS. 

Pakenham,  on  the  28th,  pushed  his  veteran  battalions  forward  on  a  recon-  I 
noissance,  and  to  sweep,  if  possible,  over  General  Jackson's  unfinished  breast- 
work. It  was  a  brilliant  morning.  Jackson,  an  old  borrowed  telescope  in 
his  hand,  was  on  the  watch.  The  solid  columns  of  red-coats  came  on,  in 
military  array,  as  beautiful  as  awe-inspiring.  The  artillery  led,  heralding  the 
advance  with  a  shower  of  Congreve  rockets,  round  shot,  and  shell.  The 
muskets  of  the  infantry  flashed  like  mirrors  in  the  light  of  the  morning  sun. 
The  Britons  were  in  high  glee.  It  was  absurd  to  suppose  that  a  few  thousand 
raw  militia  could  resist  the  veterans  who  had  conquered  the  armies  of 
Napoleon.  j 

General  Jackson  had  not  quite  three  thousand  men  behind  his  breastwork;  ' 
but  every  one  had  imbibed  the  spirit  of  his  chieftain.  There  were  eight  thou- 
sand veteran  soldiers  marching  upon  them.  For  a  few  hours  there  were  the 
tumult,  the  horror,  the  carnagfe  of  a  battle  ;  and  then  the  British  host  seemed 
to  have  melted  away.  With  shattered  ranks,  leaving  their  dead  behind  them, 
a  second  time  they  retreated.  A  third  attack,  on  January  ist,  had  the  same 
result. 

On  Friday,  the  6th,  General  Jackson  became  assured  that  the  enemy  was 
preparing  to  attack  him  on  both  sides  of  the  river.  At  half  an  hour  before 
dawn,  Sunday  morning,  January  8,  181 5,  a  rocket  from  the  hostile  lines  gave 
the  signal  for  the  attack.  In  two  solid  columns,  the  British  advanced  upon  our 
ramparts,  which  were  bristling  with  infantry  and  artillery,  and  behind  which 
General  Jackson  had  now  collected  an  army  of  about  four  thousand  men,  all 
inspired  with  the  zeal  of  their  commander. 

Our  men  were  well  protected.  With  bare  bosoms,  the  British  marched 
upon  the  embankment,  from  which  there  was  poured  forth  an  incessant  storm  of 
bullets,  balls,  and  shells,  which  no  flesh  and  blood  could  stand.  It  was  one  of 
the  most  awful  scenes  of  slaughter  which  was  ever  witnessed.  Every  bullet 
accomplished  its  mission,  spending  its  force  in  the  bodies  of  those  who  were 
insanely  driven  forward  to  inevitable  death.  Two  hundred  men  were  cut  down 
by  one  discharge  of  a  thirty-two  pounder,  loaded  to  the  muzzle  with  musket 
balls,  and  poured  into  the  head  of  a  column  at  the  distance  of  but  a  few  yards 


A  SPLENDID   VICTORY. 


S5 


Reg-iments  vanished,  a  British  officer  said,  "as  if  the  earth  had  opened  and 
swallowed  them  up."  The  American  line  looked  like  a  row  of  fiery  furnaces. 
General  Jackson  walked  slowly  along  his  ranks,  cheering  his  men,  and  saying: — 

"  Stand  to  your  guns  !  Don't  waste  your  ammunition  !  See  that  every 
shot  tells  !     Let  us  finish  the  business  to-day !  " 

Two  hours  passed,  and  the  work  was  done, — effectually  done.  As  the 
smoke  lifted,   the  whole   proud  array  had  disappeared.     The  ground  was   so 


AN   INDIAN   FIGHT    IN    FLORIDA. 


covered  with  the  dying  and  the  dead,  that,  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  front,  one 
might  walk  upon  their  bodies  ;  and,  far  away  in  the  distance,  the  retreating  lines 
of  the  foe  were  to  be  seen.     On  both  sides  of  the  river  the  enemy  was  repulsed. 

The  British  had  about  nine  thousand  in  the  engagement,  and  we  but 
about  four  thousand.  Their  loss  in  killed  and  wounded  was  two  thousand  six 
hundred,  while  ours  was  but  thirteen.  Thus  ended  the  great  battle  of  New 
Orleans. 

In  those  days  intelligence  traveled  so  slowly  that  it  was  not  until  the  4th  of 


86 


ANDREW  J  A  CKSON. 


February  that  tiding-s  of  the  victory  reached  Washington.  TTie  whole  country 
blazed  with  illuminations,  and  rang  with  rejoicings.  Ten  days  after  this,  news 
of  the  1  reaty  of  Ghent  was  received,  signed  before  the  battle  took  place. 

Jackson  now  returned  to  Nashville,  and  honors  were  poured  on  him  with- 
out number.  He  still  retained  his  command  of  the  southern  division  of  the 
army.  The  Seminole  Indians  in  Florida  were  committing  outrages  upon  our 
frontiers.  General  Jackson  gathered  an  army  of  over  two  thousand  men,  and, 
regardless  of  treaties,  marched  into  Florida,  punished  the  Indians  severely, 
attacked   a  Spanish  post,    shot  by   court-martial    a  Scotchman,  and  hung  an 

Enorlishman  accused  of  inciting- 
the  Indians  to  insurrection.  His 
energy,  and  disregard  of  treaties 
and  the  forms  of  law,  were  de- 
nounced by  one  party  and  com- 
mended by  another.  He  was, 
however,  sustained  by  Congress 
and  the  President ;  and,  after  the 
purchase  of  Florida  from  Spain. 
General  Jackson  was  appointed 
governor  of  the  newly  acquired 
territory. 

SENATOR    AND    PRESIDENT. 

For  some  reason  he  soon 
became  tired  of  his  office,  and, 
resigning  it,  again  retired  to  his 
farm  and  his  humble  home  in 
Tennessee.  His  name  soon  be- 
gan to  be  brought  forward  as 
that  of  a  candidate  for  the  presi- 
dency of  the  United  States.  In 
the  autumn  of  1823  he  was  elected,  by  the  Tennessee  Legislature,  United 
States  Senator.  In  the  stormy  electoral  canvass  of  1824,  which  resulted  in 
the  choice  of  John  Ouincy  Adams  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  General 
Jackson  received  a  larger  number  of  electoral  votes  than  either  of  his  com- 
petitors. The  Democratic  party  now  with  great  unanimity  fixed  upon  him  to 
succeed  Mr.  Adams.  In  the  campaign  of  1828  he  was  triumphantly  elected 
President  of  the  United  States.  In  1829,  just  before  he  assumed  the  reins  of 
government,  he  met  with  the  most  terrible  affliction  of  his  life  in  the  death  of 
his  wife,  whom  he  had  loved  with  devotion  which  has  perhaps  never  been  sur- 
passed.    From  the  shock  of  her  death  he  never  recovered 


MARTIN   VAN    BUREN. 


RETIREMENT  AND  DEATH.  87 

He  ever  afterward  appeared  like  a  changed  man.  He  became  subdued 
in  spirit,  and,  except  when  his  terrible  temper  had  been  greatly  aroused,  seldom 
used  profane  language.  It  is  said  that  every  night  afterward,  until  his  own 
death,  he  read  a  prayer  from  his  wife's  prayer-book,  with  her  miniature  likeness 
before  him. 

His  administration  was  one  of  the  most  memorable  in  the  annals  of  our 
country  ;  applauded  by  one  party,  condemned  by  the  other.  No  man  had  more 
bitter  enemies  or  warmer  friends.  It  is,  however,  undeniable  that  many  of  the 
acts  of  his  administration,  which  were  at  the  time  most  unsparingly  denounced, 
are  now  generally  commended.  With  all  his  glaring  faults,  he  was  a  sincere 
patriot,  honestly  seeking  the  good  of  his  country.  With  the  masses  of  the 
people,  Andrew  Jackson  was  the  most  popular  President,  with  possibly  the 
exceptions  of  Washington  and  Lincoln,  who  ever  occupied  the  chair.  At  the 
expiration  of  his  two  terms  of  office,  he  retired,  in  1837,  to  the  "  Hermitage," 
his  Tennessee  home,  resigning  his  office  at  Washington  to  his  friend  and  sup- 
porter, Martin  Van  Buren. 

His  sufferings  from  sickness  during  the  last  years  of  his  life  were  dreadful, 
but  he  bore  them  with  the  greatest  fortitude,  never  uttering  a  complaining  word. 
On  Sunday  morning,  June  8th,  1845,  it  was  seen  that  his  last  hour  had  come. 
He  assembled  all  his  family  around  him,  and,  in  the  most  affecting  manner,  took 
leave  of  each  one.  "  He  then,"  writes  one  who  was  present,  "  delivered  one 
of  the  most  impressive  lectures  on  the  subject  of  religion  that  I  have  ever 
heard.  He  spoke  for  nearly  half  an  hour,  and  apparently  with  the  power  of 
inspiration."  Soon  after  this  he  suddenly,  and  without  a  struggle,  ceased  to 
breathe.  Two  days  after  he  was  placed  in  a  grave  by  the  side  of  his  wife.  He 
had  often  said,  "  Heaven  will  be  no  heaven  to  me  if  I  do  not  meet  my  wife 
there." 


HENRY   CLAY 

■POPULAR   HERO,    PATRIOT,  AND    STATESNIAN 

ITH  the  close  of  the  great  civil  war  in  1865  disap- 
peared  from  our  politics  the  great  problem  which  for 
half  a  century  had  absorbed  the  attention  and 
tasked  the  abilities  of  American  statesmen. 
Throughout  that  period  there  was  always  one 
overshadowing  subject.  Whatever  other  ques- 
tions of  domestic  policy  came  up, — tariff,  currency, 
internal  improvements,  State  rights, — they  were 
always  subordinate  to  the  main  question,  how  to 
preserve  the  Union  and  slavery  together.  Some, 
like  Calhoun,  were  ready  to  abandon  the  Union  to 
save  slavery  ;  others,  like  Garrison,  were  ready  to 
abandon  the  Union  to  destroy  slavery  ;  but  between 
these  extremes  stood  a  great  body  of  able  and  patriotic  statesmen,  who 
loved  and  prized  the  Union  above  all  else,  and  who,  to  save  it,  would  make 
any  sacrifice,  would  join  in  any  compromise.  At  the  head  of  these,  for  more 
than  fifty  years,  towered  the  great  figure  of  Henry  Clay. 

Not  often  does  a  man  whose  life  is  spent  in  purely  civil  affairs  become  such 
a  popular  hero  and  idol  as  did  Clay — especially  when  It  is  his  fate  never  to 
reach  the  highest  place  In  the  people's  gift.  "Was  there  ever,"  says  Parton, 
"  a  public  man,  not  at  the  head  of  a  state,  so  beloved  as  he  ?  Who  ever  heard 
such  cheers,  so  hearty,  distinct  and  ringing,  as  those  which  his  name  evoked  ? 
Men  shed  tears  at  his  defeat,  and  women  went  to  bed  sick  from  pure  sympathy 
with  his  disappointment.  He  could  not  travel  during  the  last  thirty  years  of  his 
life,  but  only  vcvake.  progresses.  When  he  left  home  the  public  seized  him  and 
bore  him  alono-  over  the  land,  the  committee  of  one  State  passing  him  on  to  the 
committee  of  another,  and  the  hurrahs  of  one  town  dying  away  as  those  of  the 
next  caucrht  his  ear."  One  evidence  of  his  popularity  is  the  great  number  of 
children  named  in  his  honor.  An  English  woman  traveling  in  America  during 
the  Presidential  canvass  of  1844  writes  that  at  least  three-fourths  of  all  the  boy 
babies  born  in  that  year  must  have  been  named  for  Henry  Clay.  "  Even  now, 
more  than  thirty  years  after  his  death,"  says  Carl  Schurz,  writing  In  1886,  "we 
may  hear  old  men,  who  knew  him  in  the  days  of  his  strength,  speak  of  him 


HENRY  CLAY. 


HENRY  CLAY.  ^    ^^ 

with  an  enthusiasm  and  affection  so  warm  and  fresh  as  to  convince  us  that  the 
recollection  of  having  followed  his  leadership  is  among  the  dearest  treasures  of 
their  memory." 

Henry  Clay  was  born  in  Hanover  county,  near  Richmond,  Virginia,  in  one 
of  the  darkest  days  of  the  Revolution, — the  year  of  1 777  ;  the  year  of  the  battles 
of  Brandywine  and  Germantown,  before  yet  the  glad  news  of  Buro-oyne's  sur- 
render had  come  to  cheer  the  hearts  of  the  struggling  colonists.  His  father,  a 
poor  Baptist  preacher,  died  when  Henry  was  four  years  old,  leaving  a  wife  and 
seven  children.  There  is  a  story  that  while  his  body  was  lying  in  the  house,  a 
party  of  British  cavalry  made  a  raid  through  the  neighborhood,  and  left  on 
Mrs.  Clay's  table  a  handful  of  silver  to  pay  for  some  property  they  had  taken  ; 
but  that  as  soon  as  they  were  gone,  even  in  her  poverty  and  grief  the  spirited 
woman  swept  the  money  from  the  table  and  threw  it  in  the  fireplace. 

Clay's  boyhood  was  that  of  the  typical  "self-made  man," — a  time  of  hard 
labor,  poverty,  and  small  opportunities.  "We  catch  our  first  glimpse  of  the 
boy  when  he  sat  in  a  little  log  school-house,  without  windows  or  floor,  one  of  a 
humming  score  of  shoeless  boys,  where  a  good-natured,  irritable,  drinking 
English  schoolmaster  taught  him  to  read,  write,  and  cipher  as  far  as  Practice. 
This  was  the  only  school  he  ever  attended,  and  that  vv^as  all  he  learned  at  it.  His 
widowed  mother  with  her  seven  young  children,  her  little  farm,  and  two  or  three 
slaves,  could  do  no  more  for  him.  Next,  we  see  him  a  tall,  awkward,  slender 
stripling  of  thirteen,  still  barefoot,  clad  in  homespun  butternut  of  his  mother's 
making,  tilling  her  fields,  and  going  to  mill  with  his  bag  of  corn  strapped  upon 
the  family  pony."  At  fourteen,  in  the  year  1791,  a  place  was  found  for  him  in  a 
Richmond  drug  store,  where  he  served  as  errand  boy  and  youngest  clerk  for 
one  year. 

At  this  time  occurred  an  event  which  decided  his  future.  His  mother  hav- 
ing married  again,  her  husband  had  influence  enough  to  obtain  for  the  youth  a 
clerkship  in  the  office  of  the  Court  of  Chancery.  The  young  gendemen 
employed  in  that  office  long  remembered  the  entrance  am.ong  them  of  their  new 
comrade.  He  was  fifteen  at  the  time,  but  very  tall  for  his  age,  very  slender, 
very  awkward,  and  far  from  handsome.  His  good  mother  had  arrayed  him  in 
a  full  suit  of  pepper-and-salt  "figinny,"  an  old  Virginia  fabric  of  silk  and  cotton 
His  shirt  and  shirt-collar  were  stiffly  starched,  and  his  coat-tail  stood  out  boldly 
behind  him.  The  dandy  clerks  of  Richmond  exchanged  glances  as  this  gawky 
figure  entered  and  took  his  place  at  a  desk  to  begin  work. 

As  he  grew  older,  the  raw  and  awkward  stripling  became  a  young  man 
whose  every  movement  had  a  winning  or  commanding  grace.  Handsome  he 
never  was  ;  but  his  ruddy  face  and  abundant  light  hair,  the  grandeur  of  his  fore- 
head, and  the  speaking  intelligence  of  his  countenance,  more  than  atoned  for 
rhe  irregularity  of  his  features.     But  of  all  the  physical  gifts  bestowed  by  nature 


A  RISING  LAWYER. 


upon  this  favored  child,  the  most  unique  and  admirable  was  his  voice.  There 
was  a  depth  of  tone  in  it,  a  volume,  a  compass,  a  rich  and  tender  harmony, 
which  invested  all  he  said  with  majesty.  Parton  writes  that  he  heard  it  last  when 
Clay  was  an  old  man,  past  seventy  ;  and  all  he  said  was  a  few  words  of  acknowl- 
edgment to  a  group  of  ladies  in  the  largest  hall  in  Philadelphia.  "  He  spoke 
only  in  the  ordinary  tone  of  conversation  ;  but  his  voice  filled  the  room  as  the 
organ  fills  a  great  cathedral,  and  the  ladies  stood  spellbound  as  the  swelling 
cadences  rolled  about  the  vast  apartment.  We  have  heard  much  of  Whitefield's 
piercing  voice  and  Patrick  Henry's  silvery  tones,  but  we  cannot  believe  that 
either  of  those  natural  orators  possessed  an  organ  superior  to  Clay's  majestic 
bass.  No  one  who  ever  heard  him  speak  will  find  it  difficult  to  believe  what 
tradition  reports,  that  he  was  the  peer- 
less star  of  the  Richmond  Debating 
Society  in  1795." 

But  he  soon  discovered  that  these 
gifts  would  not  get  him  a  paying  practice 
as  an  attorney  in  Richmond  so  quickly 
as  he  desired  ;  and  as  his  mother  and 
step-father  had  removed  to  Kentucky  in 
1792,  he  resolved  to  follow  them  to  the 
western  wilds,  and  there  "grow  up  with 
the  country."  He  was  in  his  twenty- 
first  year  when  he  left  Richmond,  with 
his  license  to  practice  as  an  attorney, 
but  with  little  else,  in  his  pocket. 

A  tall,  plain,  poor,  friendless  youth 
was  young  Henry  Clay,  when  he  set  up 
in  Lexington,  and  announced  himself  a 
candidate  for  practice  as  an  attorney. 
He  had  not  even  the  means  of  paying 

his  boand.  "I  remember,"  he  said,  in  a  speech  in  1842,  "how  comfortable  I 
thought  I  should  be  if  I  could  make  ^100,  Virginia  money,  per  year;  and 
with  what  delight  I  recei\  ed  my  first  fifteen-shilling  fee.  My  hopes  were 
more  than  realized.     I  immediately  rushed  into  a  lucrative  practice." 

Less  than  two  years  after  his  arrival  at  Lexington,  in  April,  1 799,  Clay  had 
achieved  a  position  sufficiently  secure  to  ask  for  and  to  obtain  the  hand  of 
Lucretia  Hart,  the  daughter  of  a  man  of  high  character  and  prominent  standing 
in  the  State.  She  was  a  very  estimable  woman,  and  a  most  devoted  wife  to  him. 
his  prosperity  increased  rapidly  ;  so  that  soon  he  was  able  to  purchase  Ash- 
land, an  estate  of  some  six  hundred  acres,  near  Lexington^  which  afterward 
became  famous  as  Henry  Clay's  home, 


AN    OLD    VIRGINIA    MANSION. 


HENRY  CLAY.  q. 

During  the  first  thirteen  years  of  Henry  Clay  s  active  life  as  a  politician,  he 
appears  only  as  the  eloquent  champion  of  the  policy  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  whom  he 
esteemed  the  first  and  best  of  living  men.  After  defending  him  on  the  stump 
and  aiding  him  In  the  Kentucky  Legislature,  he  was  sent  in  1 806,  when  scarcely 
thirty,  to  fill  for  one  term  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  made  vacant 

by  the  resignation  of  one 
of  the  Kentucky  Senators. 
Returning  home  at  the  end 
of  the  session,  he  re-entered 
the  Kentucky  Legislature. 
In  support  of  President  Jef- 
ferson's policy  of  non-inter- 
course with  the  warring- 
nations  of  Europe,  who  were 
preying  upon  American  com- 
merce, Mr.  Clay  proposed 
that  members  of  the  Legis- 
lature should  bind  them- 
selves to  wear  nothing  that 
was  not  of  American  manu- 
facture. A  Federalist  mem- 
ber, ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
the  refusal  of  the  people  to 
use  foreign  imports  had 
caused  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  and  would  h^ve 
postponed  the  Revolution 
but  for  the  accident  at 
Lexington,  denounced  Mr. 
Clay's  proposition  as  the  act 
of  a  demagogue.  Clay  chal- 
lenged this  ill-informed  gen- 
tleman, and  a  duel  resulted, 
in  which  two  shots  were  ex- 
changed, and  both  antagonists  were  slighdy  wounded.  Elected  again  to  the 
Senate  for  an  unexpired  term,  he  re-appeared  in  that  body  in  1809,  and  sat 
during  two  sessions, 

Mr.  Clay's  public  Hfe  proper  began  in  November,  181 1,  as  a  member  of 
the  House  of  Representatives.  He  was  immediately  elected  speaker  by  the 
war  party,  by  the  decisive  majority  of  thirty-one.  He  was  then  thirty-four  years 
of  aee. 


AN  OLD  Vliu 


6S&D 


94  CLA  Y  AS  SPEAKER. 

It  is  agreed  that  to  Henry  Clay,  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
more  than  to  any  other  individual,  we  owe  the  war  of  1812.  When  the  House 
hesitated,  it  was  he  who,  descending  from  the  chair,  spoke  so  as  to  re-assure  it. 
When  President  Madison  faltered,  it  was  the  stimulus  of  Clay's  resistless  pres- 
ence that  put  heart  into  him  again.  Clay  it  was  whose  clarion  notes  rang  out 
over  departing  regiments,  and  kindled  within  them  the  martial  fire  ;  and  it  was 
Clay's  speeches  which  the  soldiers  loved  to  read  by  the  camp-fire.  When  the 
war  was  going  all  wrong  in  the  first  year.  President  Madison  wished  to  appoint 
Clay  commander-in-chief  of  the  land  forces  ;  but,  said  Gallatin,  "  What  shall  we 
do  without  him  in  the  House  of  Representatives  ?" 

In  18 14,  Clay  was  sent  with  four  other  commissioners  to  Ghent,  in  Belgium, 
to  arrange  the  terms  of  a  peace  with  England.  A  single  anecdote  will  illustrate 
the  impression  he  everywhere  produced.  An  octogenarian  British  earl,  who 
had  retired  from  public  life  because  of  his  years,  but  who  still  cherished  a  natural 
interest  in  public  men  and  measures,  being  struck  by  the  impression  made  in  the 
aristocratic  circles  of  London  by  the  American  commissioners,  then  on  their  way 
home  from  Ghent,  requested  a  friend  to  bring  them  to  see  him  at  his  house,  to 
which  his  growing  infirmities  confined  him.  The  visit  was  promptly  and  cheer- 
fully paid,  and  the  obliging  friend  afterwards  inquired  of  the  old  lord  as  to  the 
impression  the  Americans  had  made  upon  him.  "Ah  !"  said  the  veteran,  with 
the  "  light  of  other  days  "  gleaming  from  his  eyes,  "  I  liked  them  all,  but  I  liked 
the  Kentucky  man  best."     It  was  so  everywhere. 

From  1 81 5,  when  he  returned  from  Europe,  until  1825,  when  he  became 
Secretary  of  State  under  John  Quinry  Adams,  Clay  was  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives.  He  was  confessedly  the  best  presiding  officer  that  any 
deliberative  body  in  America  has  ever  known,  and  none  was  ever  more  severely 
tried.  The  intensity  and  bitterness  of  party  feeling  during  the  earlier  portion 
of  his  speakership  cannot  now  be  realized  except  by  the  few  who  remember  those 
days.  On  the  floor  of  the  house,  Mr.  Clay  was  often  impetuous  in  discussion, 
and  delighted  to  relieve  the  tedium  of  debate,  and  modify  the  bitterness  of  antag- 
onism, by  a  sportive  jest  or  lively  repartee.  On  one  occasion.  General  Smythe 
of  Virginia,  who  often  afflicted  the  house  by  the  dryness  and  verbosity  of  his 
harangues,  had  paused  in  the  middle  of  a  speech,  which  seemed  likely  to  endure 
forever,  to  send  to  the  library  for  a  book  from  which  he  wished  to  note  a  pas- 
sage. Fixing  his  eye  on  Mr.  Clay,  he  observed  the  Kentuckian  writhing  in  his 
seat,  as  if  his  patience  had  already  been  exhausted.  "You,  sir,"  remarked 
Smythe,  addressing  him,  "  speak  for  the  present  generation  ;  but  I  speak  for 
posterity."  "  Yes,"  said  Clay,  "  and  you  seem  resolved  to  speak  until  the  arrival 
of  your  audience." 

Only  once  in  the  course  of  his  long  representative  career  was  Clay  obliged 
to  canvass  for  his  election,  and  he  was  never  defeated;  nor  ^ver  could  be,  before 


HENRY  CLAY, 

95 

a  public  that  he  could  personally  meet  and  address.  The  one  searching  ordeal 
CO  which  he  was  subjected,  followed  the  passage  of  the  "  Compensation  Act"  of 
1816,  whereby  Congress  substituted  for  its  per  diem  rate  a  fixed  salary  of 
$1500  to  each  member.  This  act  excited  great  hostility  especially  in  the  West^ 
then  very  poor. 

While  canvassing  the  district,  Mr.  Clay  encountered  an  old  hunter,  who 
had  always  before  been  his  warm  friend,  but  was  now  opposed  to  his  re-election 
on  account  of  the  Compensation  Bill.  "  Have  you  a  good  rifle,  my  friend?'* 
asked  Mn  Clay.  "Yes."  **  Did  it  ever  flash?"  "Once  only,"  he  replied 
"  What  did  you  do  with  it, — throw  it  away  ?  "  "  No  ;  I  picked  the  flint,  tried  it 
again,  and  brought  down  the  game."  "  Have  I  ever  flashed,  but  upon  the  Com 
pensation  Bill?"  "No!"  "Will  you  throw  me  away?"  "No,  no!"  ex- 
claimed the  hunter  with  enthusiasm,  nearly  overpowered  by  his  feelino-s  ;  "I 
will  pick  the  flint,  and  try  you  again  !  "  He  was  ever  afterward  a  warm  sup 
porter  of  Mr.  Clay. 

THE    FAMOUS    "  MISSOURI    COMPROMISE." 

In  March,  18 18,  a  petition  for  the  admission  of  Missouri  into  the  Union  was 
presented  in  Congress  ;  and  then  began  that  long  and  bitter  struggle  over 
slavery,  which,  after  convulsing  the  country  for  nearly  half  a  century,  was  finally 
ended  on  the  banks  of  the  Appomattox,  in  1865.  "  No  sooner  had  the  debate 
begun,"  says  Schurz,  "  than  it  became  clear  that  the  philosophical  anti-slaver\ 
sentiment  of  the  revolutionary  period  had  entirely  ceased  to  have  any  influence 
upon  current  thought  in  the  South,  The  abolition  of  the  foreign  slave  trade 
had  not,  as  had  been  hoped,  prepared  the  way  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  or 
weakened  the  slave  interest  in  any  sense.  On  the  contrary,  slavery  had  been 
immensely  strengthened  by  an  economic  development  making  it  more  profitable 
than  it  ever  had  been  before.  The  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  by  Eli  Whitney 
in  1793,  had  made  the  culture  of  cotton  a  very  productive  source  of  wealth.  In 
1800  the  exportation  of  cotton  from  the  United  States  was  19,000,000  pounds, 
valued  at  $5,700,000.  In  1820  the  value  of  the  cotton  export  was  nearly  ;5^20,- 
000.000,  almost  all  of  it  the  product  of  slave  labor.  The  value  of  slaves  may  be 
said  to  have  at  least  trebled  in  twenty  years.  The  breeding  of  slaves  became  a 
profitable  industry.  Under  such  circumstances  the  slaveholders  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  slavery  was  by  no  means  so  wicked  and  hurtful  an  institution  as 
their  revolutionary  fathers  had  thought  it  to  be.  The  anti-slavery  professions  . 
of  the  revolutionary  time  became  to  them  an  awkward  reminiscence,  which  they 
would  have  been  glad  to  wipe  from  their  own  and  other  people's  memories 
On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Northern  L-^tates  there  was  no  such  change  of  feeling. 
Slavery  was  still,  in  the  nature  of  things,  believed  to  be  a  wrong  and  a  sore 
The  change  of  sentiment  in  the  South  had  not  yet  produced  its  reflex  in  the 
North.     The  slavery  question  had  not  become  a  subject  of  difference  of  opinion 


96 


THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 


and  of  controversy  among  the  Northern  people.  As  they  had  abolished  slavery 
in  their  States,  so  they  took  it  for  granted  that  it  ought  to  disappear,  and  would 
disappear  in  time,  everywhere  else.  Slavery  had  indeed,  now  and  then,  asserted 
itself  in  the  discussions  of  Congress  as  a  distinct  interest,  but  not  in  such  a  way 
as  to  arouse  much  alarm  in  the  free  States.  The  amendment  to  the  Missouri 
Bill,  providing  for  a  restriction  with  regard  to  slavery,  came  therefore  in  a  per- 
fectly natural  way  from  that  Northern  sentiment  which  remained  still  faithful  to 
the  traditions  of  the  revolutionary  period.  And  it  was  a  great  surprise  to  most 
Northern  people  that  so  natural  a  proposition  should  be  so  fiercely  resisted  on 


TURNPIKE  IN  THE  BLUE  GRASS  REGION  OF  KENTUCKY. 

the  part  of  the  South.  It  was  the  sudden  revelation  of  a  chanee  of  feeline  in 
the  South  which  the  North  had  not  observed  in  its  progress.  '  The  discussion 
of  this  Missouri  question  has  betrayed  the  secret  of  their  souls,'  wrote  John 
Oulncy  Adams.  The  slaveholders  watched  with  apprehension  the  steady 
growth  of  the  free  States  in  population,  wealth,  and  power.  In  1 790  the  popula- 
tion of  the  two  sections  had  been  nearly  even.  In  1820  there  was  a  difference 
of  over  600,000  in  favor  of  the  North  in  a  total  of  less  than  ten  millions.  In 
1790  the  representation  of  the  two  sections  in  Congress  had  been  about  evenly 
balanced.     In  1820  the  census  promised  to  give  the  North  a  preponderance  of 


HENRY  CLAY,  ^^ 

more  than  thirty  votes  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  As  the  slaveholders 
had  no  longer  the  ultimate  extinction,  but  now  the  perpetuation,  of  slavery  in 
view,  the  question  of  sectional  power  became  one  of  first  importance  to  them, 
and  with  it  the  necessity  of  having  more  slave  States  for  the  purpose  of  main 
taining  the  political  equilibrium,  at  least  in  the  Senate.  A  struggle  for  more 
slave  States  was  to  them  a  struggle  for  life.  This  was  the  true  significance  of 
the  Missouri  question." 

The  famous  "  Missouri  Compromise,"  by  which  the  ominous  dispute  of 
1820  was  at  last  settled,  included  the  admission  of  one  free  State  (Maine)  and 
one  slave  State  (Missouri)  at  the  same  time  ; — a  precedent  which  it  was  under- 
stood would  be  thereafter  followed  ;  and  it  was  enacted  that  no  other  slave  State 
should  be  formed  out  of  any  of  the  Louisiana  or  "  Northwest  territory"  north  of 
latitude  36°  30',  which  was  the  southern  boundary  line  of  Missouri.  The  assent 
of  opposing  parties  to  this  arrangement  was  secured  largely  by  the  patriotic 
efforts  of  Clay,  who,  says  Schurz,  "  did  not  confine  himself  to  speeches,  .  .  . 
but  went  from  man  to  man,  expostulating,  beseeching,  persuading,  in  his  most 
winning  way.  .  .  .  His  success  added  greatly  to  his  reputation  and  gave  new 
strength  to  his  influence."  The  result,  says  John  Ouincy  Adams,  was  "  to  bring 
into  full  display  the  talents  and  resources  and  influence  of  Mr.  Clay."  He  was 
praised  as  "the  great  pacificator,"- — a  character  which  was  confirmed  by  the 
deeds  of  his  later  life. 

During  his  long  term  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  Clay  had  the 
misfortune  to  Incur  the  hatred  of  General  Jackson, — a  hatred  which,  once 
roused,  was  implacable.  The  only  ground  for  Jackson's  ill-will  was  found  in 
proper  criticisms  by  Clay  of  his  public  acts  ;  but  to  Jackson  no  criticism  was 
proper  ;  and  from  that  time  forward  hatred  of  Clay  became  one  of  Jackson's 
leading  motives,  actually  determining  his  course  in  many  of  the  most  important 
acts  of  his  public  life.  In  1825  it  led  to  an  attack  which  profoundly  affected 
the  political  history  of  the  time,  as  well  as  the  career  of  Henry  Clay. 

The  presidential  election  of  1824  gave  no  one  of  the  candidates  a  majority 
of  the  electoral  votes.  Jackson  had  99  votes,  Adams  84,  Crawford  41,  and 
Clay  I'],  Under  the  Constitution  this  result  made  It  necessary  for  the  House 
of  Representatives  to  choose  the  President  from  among  the  three  candidates 
having  the  largest  number  of  votes.  Clay  was  Speaker  of  the  House  ;  and  as 
his  Influence  at  this  time  was  very  great,  it  was  at  once  perceived  that  he  had  it 
practically  within  his  power  to  decide  the  choice  ;  and  the  friends  of  both  Jack 
son  and  Crawford  began  to  pay  assiduous  court  to  him.  He  however  promptl} 
declared  his  Intention  of  using  his  influence  to  secure  the  choice  of  Adams  ; 
whereupon  the  Jackson  party,  a  few  days  before  the  election,  publicly  accused 
him  of  having  sold  his  influence  to  Adams  under  a  "corrupt  bargain,"  by  which 
Clay  was  to  be  given  the  Secretaryship  of  State  in  payment  for  making  Adams 


98  THE  COMPROMISE  TARIFF. 

President.  Adams  was  Clay's  natural  choice,  and  it  was  altogether  fitting  and 
proper  that  Clay  should  take  the  first  place  in  the  cabinet ;  but  the  charge,  with 
ingenious  malice,  was  made  before  the  election  ;  and  when  the  event  proved  as 
predicted,  the  confirmation  of  what  seemed  a  prophecy  was  almost  irresistible, 
and  it  had  a  tremendous  and  most  damaging  effect.  For  years  the  cry  of  "  bar- 
gain and  sale  "  was  never  allowed  to  drop.  History  has  shown  that  no  charge 
was  ever  more  completely  unfounded.  It  appears  to  have  been  a  deliberately 
concocted  slander;  yet,  in  spite  of  every  defense,  the  injury  to  Clay's  reputa 
tion  and  subsequent  career  was  very  great. 

In  1829,  Jackson  succeeded  to  the  Presidency,  and  for  a  short  season  Clay 
returned  to  private  life  in  his  beautiful  Kentucky  home ;  but  he  was  not  long  to 
remain  there;  in  1831  he  was  again  elected  to  the  Senate,  where  he  remained 
until  1842.  They  were  stormy  years.  In  South  Carolina  the  opposition  to 
the  protective  tariff  had  led  to  the  promulgation  of  the  famous  "nullification" 
theory, — the  doctrine  that  any  State  had  the  power  to  declare  a  law  of  the 
United  States  null  and  void.  Jackson,  whose  anger  was  thoroughly  aroused, 
dealt  with  the  revolt  in  summary  fashion  ;  threatening  that  if  any  resistance  to 
the  government  was  attempted,  he  would  instantly  have  the  leaders  arrested 
and  brought  to  trial  for  treason.  Nevertheless,  to  allay  the  discontent  of  the 
South,  Clay  devised  his  Compromise  Tariff  of  1833,  under  which  the  duties 
were  gradually  reduced,  until  they  reached  a  minimum  of  twenty  per  cent.  In 
1832  he  allowed  himself,  very  unwisely,  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
Jackson's  re-election  being  a  foregone  conclusion.  In  1836  he  declined  a  nomi- 
nation, and  Van  Buren  was  elected.  Then  followed  the  panic  of  1837,  which 
insured  the  defeat  of  the  party  in  power,  and  the  election  of  the  Whig  candidate 
at  the  following  presidential  election  ;  but  the  popularity  of  General  Jackson 
had  convinced  the  party  managers  that  success  demanded  a  military  hero  as  a 
candidate:  and  accordingly  General  Harrison,  "the  hero  of  Tippecanoe,"  was 
elected,  after  the  famous  "Log  Cabin  and  Hard  Cider  campaign"  of  1840. 
This  slight  was  deeply  mortifying  to  Clay,  who  had  counted  with  confidence 
upon  being  the  candidate  of  the  party.  "  I  am  the  most  unfortunate  man  in 
the  history  of  parties,"  he  truly  remarked:  "always  run  by  my  friends  when 
sure  to  be  defeated,  and  now  betrayed  for  a  nomination  when  I,  or  any  one 
else,  would  be  sure  of  an  election." 

THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1 844. 

In  1844,  however.  Clay's  opportunity  came  at  last.  He  was  so  obviously 
the  Whig  candidate  that  there  was  no  opposition.  The  convention  met  at 
Baltimore  in  May,  and  he  was  nominated  by  acclamation,  with  a  shout  that 
shook  the  building.  Everything  appeared  to  indicate  success,  and  his  supporters 
regarded  his  triumphant  election  as  certain. 


HENRY  CLAY. 


99 


But  into  the  politics  of  the  time  had  come  a  new  factor — the  "  Liberty  party." 
This  had  been  hitherto  considered  unimportant  ;  but  the  proposed  annexation 
of  Texas,  which  had  become  a  prominent  question,  was  opposed  by  many  in 
the  North  who  had  hitherto  voted  with  the  Whig  party.  Clay  was  a  slaveholder, 
and  though  he  had  opposed  the  extension  of  slavery,  his  record  was  not  satis- 
factory to  those  who  disapproved  of  the  annexation  of  Texas.  By  letters  and 
speeches  he  endeavored  to  conciliate  them  ;  but  he  was  betw^een  two  fires  ;  he 
did  not  succeed  in  securing  their  adherence,  while  his  efforts  to  do  so  lost  him 
the  support  of  many  with  whom  annexation  was  popular.  Then,  too,  his  old 
enemy,  Jackson,  from  his  seclusion  at  the   "  Hermitage,"  wrote  letters  reviving 

the  old  "bargain  and  corrup- 
tion" story  of  1825.  By  an 
audacious  fraud,  his  opponents 
posed  in  Pennsylvania  as  the 
friends  of  protection,  and  the  cry 
of  "  Polk,  Dallas  and  the  tariff 
of  1842  !"  was  made  to  do  duty 
against  him.  As  the  campaign 
progressed,  the  more  clear- 
sighted among  his  friends,  in 
spite  of  his  immense  popularity, 
be^an  to  feel  somewhat  less  cer- 
tain  of  the  result.  But  while  the 
manaeers  noticed  the  adverse 
current,  the  masses  of  the  Whig 
party  firmly  expected  success  to 
the  very  last.  It  seemed  impos- 
sible to  them  that  Henry  Clay 
could  be  defeated  by  James  K. 
Polk.  Everything  depended  on 
JAMES  K.  POLK.  Ncw  York.     Thc  returns  from 

the  interior  of  the  State  came  in 
slowly.  There  seemed  to  be  still  a  possibility  that  heavy  Whig  majorities  in  the 
western  counties  might  overcome  the  large  Democratic  vote  in  the  eastern.  1  he 
suspense  was  painful.  People  did  not  go  to  bed,  watching  for  the  mails.  When 
at  last  the  decisive  news  went  forth  which  left  no  doubt  of  the  result,  the  Whigs 
broke  out  in  a  wail  of  agony  all  over  the  land.  "  It  was,"  says  Nathan  Sargent, 
"as  if  the  first-born  of  every  family  had  been  stricken  down."  The  descriptions 
we  have  of  the  grief  manifested  are  almost  incredible.  Tears  flowed  in  abund- 
ance from  the  eyes  of  men  and  women.  In  the  cities  and  villages  the  business 
places  were  almost  deserted   for  a  day  or  two,  people   gathering   together   m 

L.o"C. 


100  FINANCIAL  TROUBLES. 

groups  to  discuss  in  low  tones  what  had  happened.  Neither  did  the  victorious 
Democrats  indulge  in  the  usual  demonstrations  of  triumph.  There  was  a  feeling 
as  if  a  great  wrong  had  been  done.  The  Whigs  were  fairly  stunned  by  their 
defeat.  Many  despaired  of  the  republic,  sincerely  believing  that  the  experiment 
of  popular  government  had  failed  forever.  Almost  all  agreed  that  the  great 
statesmen  of  the  country  would  thenceforth  always  remain  excluded  from  the 
presidency,  and  that  the  highest  office  would  be  the  prize  only  of  second-rate 
politicians. 

During  the  autumn  and  early  part  of  the  winter  of  1844-5  Clay  remained 
at  Ashland,  receiving  and  answering  a  flood  of  letters  from  all  parts  of  the 
United  States,  and  even  from  Europe,  which  conveyed  to  him  expressions  of 
condolence  and  sympathy.  Private  cares  had  meanwhile  gathered,  in  addi- 
tion to  his  public  disappointments.  He  had  for  some  time  been  laboring 
under  great  pecuniary  embarrassment,  owing  partly  to  the  drafts  which  are 
always  made  upon  the  purse  of  a  prominent  public  man,  partly  to  the  business 
failure  of  one  of  his  sons.  Aside  from  other  pressing  debts,  there  was  a  heavy 
mortgage  resting  on  Ashland,  and,  as  an  old  man  of  sixty-seven.  Clay  found 
himself  forced  to  consider  whether,  in  order  to  satisfy  his  creditors,  it  would  not 
be  necessary  to  part  with  his  beloved  home.  Relief  came  to  him  suddenly,  and 
in  an  unexpected  form.  When  offering  a  payment  to  the  bank  at  Lexington, 
the  president  informed  him  that  sums  of  money  had  arrived  from  different  parts 
of  the  country  to  pay  off  Henry  Clay's  debts,  and  that  all  the  notes  and  the 
mortgage  were  canceled.  Clay  was  deeply  moved.  "  Who  did  this  ?"  he  asked 
the  banker.  All  the  answer  he  received  was  that  the  givers  were  unknown,  but 
they  were  presumably  "  not  his  enemies."  Clay  doubted  whether  he  should 
accept  the  gift,  and  consulted  some  of  his  friends.  They  reminded  him  of  the 
many  persons  of  historic  renown  who  had  not  refused  tokens  of  admiration  and 
gratitude  from  their  countrymen  ;  and  added  that,  as  he  could  not  discover  the 
unknown  givers,  he  could  not  return  the  gift  ;  and,  as  the  gift  appeared  in  the 
shape  of  a  discharged  obligation,  he  could  not  force  the  renewal  of  the  debt 
At  last  he  consented  to  accept,  and  thus  was  Ashland  saved  to  him. 

THE    COMPROMISE    OF    185O. 

The  last  and  greatest  public  work  of  Clay's  life  was  the  famous  Compromise 
of  1850,  which,  as  has  often  been  said,  postponed  for  ten  years  the  great  Civil 
War.  In  1849  he  was  unanimously  elected  United  States  Senator  by  the  Ken- 
tucky Legislature,  in  spite  of  the  well-known  fact  that  his  views  on  the  slavery 
question  were  distasteful  to  a  large  number  of  his  constituents.  The  truth  is 
that  they  saw  that  a  storm  was  gathering,  and  relied  on  Clay's  wisdom  and 
patriotism  to  meet  the  emergency.  The  sentiment  against  slavery  was  increas- 
ing.    The  free  States  were  outstripping  the  pJave  States  in  wealth  and  popula- 


HENRY  CLAY 


lOI 


tlon.  It  was  evident  that  slavery  must  have  more  territory  or  die.  Shut  out  of 
the  Northwest  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  it  was  supposed  that  a  great  field 
for  its  extension  had  been  gained  in  Texas  and  the  territory  acquired  from 
Mexico.  But  now  California,  a  part  of  this  territory  which  had  been  counted 
upon  for  slavery,  was  populated  by  a  sudden  rush  of  Northern  immigration,  at- 
tracted by  the  discovery  of  gold  ;  and  a  State  government  was  organized,  with 
a  constitution  excluding  slavery.  Thus,  instead  of  adding  to  the  area  of  slavery, 
the  Mexican  territory  seemed  likely  to  increase  the  strength  of  freedom.  The 
South  was  both  alarmed  and  exasperated.  Threats  of  disunion  were  freely 
made.      It  was  evident  that  prompt  measures  must  be  taken  to  allay  the  prevail- 


RESIDENCE  OF  A   SOUTHERN  PLANTER. 


ing  excitement,  if  disruption  was  to  be  avoided.      In  such  an  emergency  it  was 
natural  that  all  eyes  should  turn  to  the  "great  pacificator,"  Henry  Clay. 

When,  at  the  session  of  1849-50,  he  appeared  in  the  Senate,  to  assist,  if 
possible,  in  removing  the  slavery  question  from  politics,  Clay  was  an  infirm  and 
serious,  but  not  sad,  old  man  of  seventy-two.  He  never  lost  his  cheerfulness 
or  faith,  but  he  felt  deeply  for  his  distracted  country.  During  that  memorable 
session  of  Congress  he  spoke  seventy  times.  Often  extremely  sick  and  feeble, 
scarcely  able,  with  the  assistance  of  a  friend  s  arm,  to  climb  the  steps  of  the 
Capitol,  he  was  never  absent  on  the  days  when  the  Compromise  was  to  be 
debated.     On  the  morning  on  which  he  began  his  great  speech,  he  was  accom- 


I02  THE  CRISIS  OF  1830. 

panied  by  a  clerical  friend,  to  whom  he  said,  on  reaching-  the  long  flight  of  steps 
leading  to  the  Capitol,  "Will  you  lend  me  your  arm,  my  friend  ?  for  I  find  my- 
self quite  weak  and  exhausted  this  morning."  Every  few  steps  he  was  obliged 
to  stop  and  take  breath.  "  Had  you  not  better  defer  your  speech?  "  asked  the 
clergyman.  "  My  dear  friend,"  said  the  dying  orator,  "I  consider  our  country 
in  danger ;  and  if  I  can  be  the  means,  in  any  measure,  of  averting  that  danger, 
my  health  or  life  is  of  little  consequence."  When  he  rose  to  speak,  it  was  but 
too  evident  that  he  was  unfit  for  the  task  he  had  undertaken.  But  as  he 
kindled  with  his  subject,  his  cough  left  him,  and  his  bent  form  resumed  all  its 
wonted  erectness  and  majesty.  He  may,  in  the  prime  of  his  strength,  have 
spoken  with  more  energy,  but  never  with  so  much  pathos  or  grandeur.  His 
speech  lasted  two  days  ;  and  though  he  lived  two  years  longer,  he  never  recov- 
ered from  the  effects  of  the  effort.  The  thermometer  in  the  Senate  chamber 
marked  nearly  100°.  Toward  the  close  of  the  second  day,  his  friends  repeat- 
edly proposed  an  adjournment ;  but  he  would  not  desist  until  he  had  given 
complete  utterance  to  his  feelings.  He  said  afterward  that  he  was  not  sure,  if 
he  gave  way  to  an  adjournment,  that  he  should  ever  be  able  to  resume. 

Never  was  Clay's  devotion  to  the  Union  displayed  in  such  thrilling  and 
pathetic  forms  as  In  the  course  of  this  long  debate.  On  one  occasion  allusion 
was  made  to  a  South  Carolina  hot-head,  who  had  publicly  proposed  to  raise  the 
flag  of  disunion.  When  Clay  retorted  by  saying,  that,  if  Mr.  Rhett  had  really 
meant  that  proposition,  and  should  follow  it  up  by  corresponding  acts,  he  would 
be  a  traitor,  and  added,  "  and  I  hope  he  will  meet  a  traitor's  fate,"  thunders  of 
applause  broke  from  the  crowded  galleries.  When  the  chairman  succeeded  in 
restoring  silence,  Mr.  Clay  made  that  celebrated  declaration  which  was  so  fre- 
quently quoted  in  1861  :  "If  Kentucky  to-morrow  shall  unfurl  the  banner  of 
resistance  unjustly,  I  will  never  fight  under  that  banner.  I  owe  paramount  alle- 
giance to  the  whole  Union,  a  subordinate  one  to  my  own  State."  Again  :  "The 
Senator  speaks  of  Virginia  being  my  country.  This  Union,  sir,  is  my  country ; 
the  thirty  States  are  my  country  ;  Kentucky  Is  my  country,  and  Virginia,  no 
more  than  any  State  in  the  Union."  And  yet  again  :  "  There  are  those  who 
think  that  the  Union  must  be  preserved  by  an  exclusive  reliance  upon  love  and 
reason.  That  is  not  my  opinion.  I  have  some  confidence  in  this  instrumentality ; 
but,  depend  upon  it,  no  human  government  can  exist  without  the  power  of 
applying  force,  and  the  actual  application  of  it  In  extreme  cases." 

"Who  can  estimate,"  says  Parton,  "the  influence  of  these  clear  and  em- 
phatic utterances  ten  years  after  ?  The  crowded  galleries,  the  numberless 
newspaper  reports,  the  quickly  succeeding  death  of  the  great  orator,  all  aided 
to  give  them  currency  and  effect.  We  shall  never  know  how  many  wavering 
minds  they  aided  to  decide  In  1861.  Not  that  Mr.  Clay  really  believed  the  con- 
flict would  occur :  he  was  mercifully  permitted  to  die  in  the  conviction  that  the 


11 


HENRY  CLAY,  103 

Compromise  of  1850  had  removed  all  immediate  danger,  and  greatly  lessened 
that  of  the  future.  Far  indeed  was  he  from  foreseeing  that  the  ambition  of 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  a  man  born  in  New  England,  calling  himself  a  disciple  of 
Andrew  Jackson,  would  within  five  years  destroy  all  compromises,  and  render 
all  future  compromise  impossible,  by  procuring  the  repeal  of  the  first, — the 
Missouri  Compromise  of  1821  ?  " 

"  Whatever  Clay's  weaknesses  of  character  and  errors  in  statesmanship 
may  have  been,"  says  Schurz,  "almost  everything  he  said  or  did  was  illumined 
by  a  grand  conception  of  the  destinies  of  his  country,  a  glowing  national  spirit, 
a  lofty  patriotism.  Whether  he  thundered  against  British  tyranny  on  the  seas, 
or  urged  the  recognition  of  the  South  American  sister  republics,  or  attacked 
the  high-handed  conduct  of  the  military  chieftain  in  the  Florida  war,  or  advo- 
cated protection  and  internal  improvements,  or  assailed  the  one-man  power  and 
spoils  politics  in  the  person  of  Andrew  Jackson,  or  entreated  for  compromise 
and  conciliation  regarding  the  tariff  or  slavery  ;  whether  what  he  advocated  was 
wise  or  unwise,  right  or  wrong, — there  was  always  ringing  through  his  words  a 
fervid  plea  for  his  country,  a  zealous  appeal  in  behalf  of  the  honor  and  the  future 
greatness  and  glory  of  the  Republic,  or  an  anxious  warning  lest  the  Union,  and 
with  it  the  greatness  and  glory  of  the  American  people,  be  put  in  jeopardy.  It 
was  a  just  judgment  which  he  pronounced  upon  himself  when  he  wrote  :  "  If 
any  one  desires  to  know  the  leading  and  paramount  object  of  my  public  life, 
the  preservation  of  the  Union  will  furnish  him  the  key." 


DANIEL  WEBSTER, 

THK     DEKENDER    OF    NATIONAL    UNION, 

N  THE  hall  of  the  United  States  Senate,  on  January  26,  1830, 
occurred  one  of  the  most  memorable  scenes  in  the  annals 
of  Congress.  It  was  then  that  Daniel  Webster  made  his 
famous  "Reply  to  Hayne," — that  renowned  speech  which 
has  been  declared  the  greatest  oration  ever  made  in  Con- 
gress, and  which,  in  its  far-reaching  effect  upon  the  public 
mind,  did  so  much  to  shape  the  future  destiny  of  the 
American  Union.  That  speech  v/as  Webster's  crowning 
work,  and  the  event  of  his  life  by  which  he  will  be  best 
known  to  posterity. 

Nothing  in  our  history  is  more  striking  than  the  con- 
trast between  the  Union  of  the  time  of  Washington  and  the  Union  of  the  time 
of  Lincoln.  It  was  not  merely  that  in  the  intervening  seventy-two  years  the 
republic  had  grown  great  and  powerful  ;  it  was  that  the  popular  sentiment 
toward  the  Union  was  transformed.  The  old  feeling  of  distrust  and  jealousy 
had  given  place  to  a  passionate  attachment.  It  was  as  though  a  puny,  sickly, 
feeble  child,  not  expected  by  its  parents  even  to  live,  had  come  to  be  their 
strong  defense  and  support,  their  joy  and  pride.  A  weak  league  of  States  had 
become  a  strong  nation;  and  when  in  1861  it  v/as  attacked,  millions  of  men 
were  ready  to.  fight  for  its  defense.  What  brought  about  this  great  change  ? 
What  was  it  that  stirred  this  larger  patriotism,  that  gave  shape  and  purpose  to 
the  growing  feeling  of  national  pride  and  unity  ?  It  was  in  a  great  degree 
the  work  of  Daniel  Webster.  It  was  he  who  maintained  and  advocated  the 
theory  that  the  Federal  Constitution  created,  not  a  league,  but  a  nation, — thai 
it  welded  the  people  into  organic  union,  supreme  and  perpetual  ;  who  set  forth 
in  splendid  completeness  the  picture  of  a  great  nation,  inseparably  united,  com- 
manding the  first  allegiance  and  loyalty  of  every  citizen  ;  and  who  so  fostered 
and  strengthened  the  sentiment  of  union  that  when  the  great  struggle  came,  it 
had  grown  too  strong  to  be  overthrown. 

Daniel  Webster  was  born  in  the  year  1782, — soon  after  the  surrender  of 
Cornwallis,  but  before  the  treaty  of  peace  had  formally  ended  the  War  of  the 
104 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  107 

Revolution.  His  father  was  one  of  the  brave  men  who  fought  at  Lexington  ; 
and  like  most  of  the  patriots  of  that  day,  had  a  large  family  to  support  and 
educate  on  his  rocky  New  Hampshire  farm.  Daniel  was  the  youngest  of  ten 
children,  and,  like  the  rest,  was  early  put  to  work.  He  was  intensely  fond  of 
books.  When  at  work  in  his  father's  saw-mill,  he  would  set  a  log,  and  while 
the  saw  was  going  through  it,  would  devour  a  book.  There  was  a  small  circu- 
lating library  in  the  village,  and  Daniel  read  everything  it  contained,  committing 
most  of  the  contents  to  memory.  His  talents  as  a  reader  were  known  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  the  passing  teamsters,  while  they  watered  their  horses,  de- 
lighted to  get  "Webster's  boy,"  with  his  delicate  look  and  great  dark  eyes,  to 
come  out  beneath  the  shade  of  the  trees  and  read  the  Bible  to  them  with  all  the 
force  of  his  childish  eloquence. 

Daniel's  abilities  as  a  boy  in  many  ways  gave  promise  of  his  future  great- 
ness. His  powers  of  memory  were,  all  through  life,  most  extraordinary.  His 
teacher  used  to  tell  of  one  of  the  facts  of  his  schoolboy  days.  "On  a  Satur- 
day, I  remember,"  says  the  ancient  pedagogue,  "  I  held  up  a  handsome  new 
jack-knife  to  the  scholars,  and  said  that  the  boy  who  would  commit  to  memory 
the  greatest  number  of  verses  in  the  Bible  by  Monday  morning  should  have  it. 
Many  of  the  boys  did  well  ;  but  when  it  came  to  Daniel's  turn  to  recite,  I  found 
that  he  had  committed  so  much,  that,  after  hearing  him  repeat  some  sixty  or 
seventy  verses,  I  was  obliged  to  give  up, — he  telling  me  that  there  were  several 
chapters  yet  to  recite,  that  he  had  learned.     Daniel  got  that  jack-knife." 

The  story  of  the  sacrifices  made  by  the  whole  family  in  order  that  the  boys 
might  be  educated,  bears  touching  witness  to  the  family  affection  and  unity. 
When  fourteen,  Daniel  was  sent  to  Phillips  Exeter  Academy,  and  in  the  follow- 
ing year  he  entered  Dartmouth  College.  By  teaching  school  in  vacation  he 
made  his  way  through  college,  and  also  managed  to  aid  his  brother  Ezekiel. 
He  was  the  foremost  man  in  his  dass,  maintaining  this  position  throughout  the 
whole  course.  In  1801  he  began  to  study  law  in  Salisbury,  New  Hampshire.  In 
1804,  to  perfect  his  legal  knowledge,  he  went  to  Boston,  and  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  in  1805. 

Webster's  magnificent  appearance. 

No  sketch  of   Daniel   Webster  is   complete  or  adequate  which  omits  to 

describe  his  extraordinary  personal   appearance  and  presence.     "  We  can  but 

half  understand  his  eloquence  and  its  influence,"  says  Mr.  Lodge,  "  if  we  do  not 

carefully  study  his  physical  attributes,  his  temperam^^nt  and  disposition.     In  face, 

form,  and  voice,  nature  did  her  utmost  for  Daniel  Webster.     He  seemed  to  every 

one  to  be  a  giant ;  that,  at  least,  is  the  word  we  most  commonly  find  applied  to 

1  him  ;  and  there  is  no  better  proof  of  his  wonderful  imprcssiveness  than  this  fact, 

I  for  he  was  not  a  man  of  extraordinary  stature.     He  was  five  feet  ten  inches  in 

I  height,  and,  in  health,  weighed  a  little  less  than  two  hundred  pounds.     These 


io8 


HIS  PERSONAL  MAGNETISM. 


are  the  proportions  of  a  large  man,  but  there  is  nothing  remarkable  about  them. 
We  must  look  elsewhere  than  to  mere  size  to  discover  why  men  spoke  of 
Webster  as  a  giant.  He  had  a  swarthy  complexion  and  straight  black  hair. 
His  head  was  very  large  ;  at  the  same  time  it  was  of  noble  shape,  with  a  broad 
and  lofty  brow,  and  his  features  were  finely  cut  and  full  of  massive  strength. 
His  eyes  were  extraordinary.  They  were  very  large  and  deep-set,  and,  when 
he  began  to  rouse  himself  to  action,  shone  with  the  deep  light  of  a  forge-fire, 
o-etting  ever  more  glowing  as  excitement  rose.     His  voice  was  in  harmony  with' 


FANEUIL    HALL,    BOSTON,   WHICH    WEBSTER    CALLED    "THE    CRADLE    OF   LIBERTY." 


his  appearance.  It  was  low  and  musical  in  conversation  ;  in  debate  it  was  high 
but  full,  rinofine  out  in  moments  of  excitement  like  a  clarion,  and  then  sinking 
to  deep  notes  with  the  solemn  richness  of  organ-tones,  while  the  words  were 
accompanied  by  a  manner  in  which  grace  and  dignity  mingled  in  complete 
accord." 

That  indefinable  quality  which  we  call  personal  magnetism,  the  power  of 
impressing  by  one's  personality  every  human  being  who  comes  near,  was  at  its 
height  in  Mr.  Webster.  He  never,  for  instance,  punished  his  children,  but  when 
they  did  wrong  he  would  send  for  them  and  look  at  them  silently.     The  Ipok 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  109 

whether  of  sorrow  or  anger,  was  punishment  and  rebuke  enough.     It  was  the 
same  with  other  children. 

Daniel  Webster  had  surpassing  abilities  in  three  great  spheres, — those  of 
the  lawyer,  the  orator,  and  the  statesman.  As  a  lawyer  his  most  famous  argu- 
ments are  those  in  the  Dartmouth  College  case,  the  White  murder  case,  and  the 
"steamboat  case,"  as  it  was  called.  A  part  of  his  speech  in  the  murder  case  is 
still  printed  in  school  readers,  and  declaimed  on  examination  days.  The  Dart- 
mouth College  case  is  one  of  the  most  famous  in  American  litigation.  While  very 
intricate,  it  may  be  generally  described  as  a  suit  to  annul  the  charter  of  the  col- 
lege on  the  ground  that  it  had  failed  to  carry  out  the  purposes  expressed  in  the 
will  of  its  founder.  After  trial  in  the  State  courts,  it  was  appealed  to  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  before  which  Mr.  Webster  made  his  great  argument  in 
18 1 8.  Mr.  C.  A.  Goodrich,  who  was  present,  has  given  the  following  description 
of  the  scene  : — • 

The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  held  its  session,  that  winter,  in  a  mean  apartment  of 
moderate  size — the  Capitol  not  having  been  built  after  its  destruction  in  1814.  The  audience,  when 
the  case  came  on,  was  therefore  small,  consisting  chiefly  of  legal  men,  the  elite  of  the  profession 
throughout  the  country.  Mr.  Webster  entered  upon  his  argument  in  the  calm  tone  of  easy  and  digni- 
fied conversation.  His  matter  was  so  completely  at  his  command  that  he  scarcely  looked  at  his 
brief,  but  went  on  for  more  than  four  hours  with  a  statement  so  luminous  and  a  chain  of  reasoning 
so  easy  to  be  understood,  and  yet  approaching  so  nearly  to  absolute  demonstration,  that  he  seemed 
to  carry  with  him  every  man  in  his  audience,  without  the  slightest  effort  or  weariness  on  either  side. 
It  was  hardly  eloquence,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term  ;  it  was  pure  reason.  Now  and  then,  for  a 
sentence  or  two,  his  eye  flashed  and  his  voice  swelled  into  a  bolder  note,  as  he  uttered  some 
emphatic  thought ;  but  he  instantly  fell  back  into  the  tone  of  earnest  conversation,  which  ran 
throughout  the  great  body  of  his  speech. 

A  single  circumstance  will  show  the  clearness  and  absorbing  power  of  his  argument.  I  had 
observed  that  Judge  Story,  at  the  opening  of  the  case,  had  prepared  himself,  pen  in  hand,  as  if  to 
take  copious  minutes.  Hour  after  hour  I  saw  him  fixed  in  the  same  attitude,  but,  so  far  as  I  could 
perceive,  with  not  a  note  on  his  paper.  The  argument  closed,  and  I  could  not  discover  that  he 
had  taken  a  single  note.  Others  around  me  remarked  the  same  thing;  and  it  was  among  the  on 
dits  of  Washington,  that  a  friend  spoke  to  him  of  the  fact  with  surprise,  when  the  judge  remarked  : 
"  Everything  was  so  clear,  and  so  easy  co  remember,  that  not  a  note  seemed  necessary,  and,  in 
fact,  I  thought  little  or  nothing  about  my  notes." 

The  argument  ended.  Mr.  Webster  stood  for  some  moments  silent  before  the  court,  while 
every  eye  was  fixed  intently  upon  hin>  At  length,  addressing  the  Chief  Justice,  Marshall,  he 
proceeded  thus  : 

''This,  sir,  is  my  case  !  It  is  the  case,  not  merely  of  that  humble  institution,  it  is  the  case 
of  every  college  in  our  land.  It  is  more.  It  is  the  case  of  every  eleemosynary  institution  through- 
[  out  our  country  ;  of  all  those  great  charities  founded  by  the  piety  of  our  ancestors  to  alleviate 
,  human  misery,  and  scatter  blessings  along  the  pathway  of  life.  It  is  more  !  It  is,  in  some  sense, 
I  the  case  of  every  man  among  us  who  has  property  of  which  he  may  be  stripped  ;  for  the  question  is 
i^ simply  this:  Shall  our  State  Legislatures  be  allowed  to  take  that  which  is  not  their  own,  to  turn  it 
jfrom  its  original  use,  and  ai)ply  it  to  such  ends  and  purposes  as  they,  in  their  discretion,  shall  see  fit 
I  "  Sir,  you  may  destroy  this  little  institution  ;  it  is  weak  ;  it  is  in  your  hands  !     I  know  it  is 

Une  oi  the  lesser  lights  in  the  literary  horizon  of  our  country.     You  may  put  it  out.     But  if  you  do 


■  no  THE  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  ARGUMENT. 

so,  you  must  carry  through  your  work  !  You  must  extinguish,  one  after  another,  all  those  great 
lights  of  science  which,  for  more  than  a  century,  have  thrown  their  radiance  over  our  land. 

**  It  is,  sir,  as  I  have  said,  a  small  college.     And  yet,  there  are  those  who  love  it '* 

Here  th©  feelings  which  he  had  thus  far  succeeded  in  keeping  down  broke  forth.  His  lips 
quivered  ;  his  firm  cheeks  trembled  with  emotion  ;  his  eyes  were  filled  with  tears  ;  his  voice  choked, 
and  he  seemed  struggling  to  the  utmost  simply  to  gain  that  mastery  over  himself  which  might  save 
him  from  an  unmanly  burst  of  feeling.  I  will  not  attempt  to  give  you  the  few  broken  words  of 
ienderness  in  which  he  went  on  to  speak  of  his  attachment  to  the  college.  The  whole  seemed  to 
be  mingled  throughout  with  the  recollections  of  father,  mother,  brother,  and  all  the  trials  and 
privations  through  which  he  had  made  his  way  into  life.  Every  one  saw  that  it  was  wholly  unpre- 
meditated, a  pressure  on  his  heart  which  sought  relief  in  words  and  tears. 

The  court-room,  during  these  two  or  three  minutes,  presented  an  extraordinary  spectacle. 
Chief  Justice  Marshall,  with  his  tall,  gaunt  figure  bent  over  as  if  to  catch  the  slightest  whisper,  the 
deep  furrows  of  his  cheeks  expanded  with  emotion,  and  eyes  suffused  with  tears;  Mr.  Justice  Wash- 
ington at  his  side,  with  his  small  and  emaciated  frame,  and  countenance  more  like  marble  than  I 
ever  saw  on  any  human  being,  leaning  forward  with  an  eager,  troubled  look;  and  the  remainder  of 
the  court,  at  the  two  extremities,  pressing,  as  it  were,  toward  a  single  point,  while  the  audience 
below  were  wrapping  themselves  round  in  closer  folds  beneath  the  bench  to  catch  each  look,  and 
every  movement  of  the  speaker's  face.  If  a  painter  could  give  us  the  scene  on  canvas — those  forms 
and  countenances,  and  Daniel  Webster  as  he  then  stood  in  the  midst,  it  would  be  one  of  the  most 
touching  pictures  in  the  history  of  eloquence.  One  thing  it  taught  me,  that  the  pathetic  depends 
not  merely  on  the  words  uttered,  but  still  more  on  the  estimate  we  put  upon  him  who  utters  them. 
There  was  not  one  among  the  strong-minded  men  of  that  assembly  who  could  think  it  unmanly  to 
weep,  when  he  saw  standing  before  him  the  man  who  had  made  such  an  argument,  melted  into  the 
tenderness  of  a  child. 

Mr.  VVebster  had  now  recovered  his  composure,  and  fixing  his  eye  on  the  Chief  Justice,  said, 
in  that  deep  tone  with  which  he  sometimes  thrilled  the  heart  of  an  audience  :  — 

"Sir,  I  know  not  how  others  may  feel "  (glancing  at  the  opponents  of  the  college  before 
him),  "  but,  for  myself,  when  I  see  my  Alma  Mater  surrounded,  like  Caesar  in  the  Senate-house,  by 
those  who  are  reiterating  stab  upon  stab,  I  would  not,  for  this  right  hand,  have  her  turn  to  me  and 
say,  ^Et  til  quoqiie,  mi  fill !   And  thou  too,  my  son  !'  " 

He  sat  down.  There  was  a  death-like  stillness  throughout  the  room  for  some  moments, 
every  one  seemed  to  be  slowly  recovering  himself,  and  coming  gradually  back  to  his  ordinary  range 
of  thought  and  feeling. 

As  an  orator,  Mr.  Webster's  most  famous  speeches  are  the  Plymouth  Rock 
address,  in  1820,  on  the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  Landing  of  the  Pil 
grims  ;  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument  address,  in  1825  ;  and  his  speeches  in  the 
Senate  on  January  30th,  1830,  in  reply  to  Hayne,  and  March  7th,  1850,  on 
Clay's  Compromise  Bill. 

Of  the  Plymouth  Rock  oration  a  glimpse  is  given  in  a  letter  written  at  the 
time  to  a  friend   by  Mr.  George  Ticknor.     He  writes  : — 

*' Friday  Evening.  1  have  run  away  from  a  great  levee  there  is  down-stairs,  thronging  in 
admiration  round  Mr.  Webster,  to  tell  you  a  little  word  about  his  oration.  Yet  I  do  not  dare  to 
trust  myself  about  it,  and  I  warn  you  beforehand  that  I  have  not  the  least  confidence  in  my  own 
opinion.  His  manner  carried  me  away  completely  ;  not,  I  think,  that  I  could  have  been  so  carried 
away  if  it  had  been  a  poor  oration,  for  of  that,  I  apprehend,  there  can  be  no  fea.r.     It  must  have 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  tn 

been  a  great,  a  very  great  performance ;  but  whether  it  was  so  absoUitely  unrivaled  as  I  imagined 
when  I  was  under  the  immediate  influence  of  his  presence,  of  his  tones,  of  his  looks,  I  cannot  be 
sure  till  I  have  read  it,  for  it  seems  to  me  incredible. 

"  I  was  never  so  excited  by  public  speaking  before  in  my  life.  Three  or  four  times  I  thought 
my  temples  would  burst  with  the  gush  of  blood  ;  for,  after  all,  you  must  know  that  I  am  aware  it  i? 
no  connected  and  compacted  whole,  but  a  collection  of  wonderful  fragments  of  burning  eloquence, 
to  which  his  whole  manner  gave  tenfold  force.  When  I  came  out  I  was  almost  afraid  to  come  near 
to  him.  It  seemed  to  me  that  he  was  like  the  mount  that  might  not  be  touched,  and  that  burned 
with  fire.     I  was  beside  myself,  and  am  so  still. 

"The  passage  at  the  end,  where,  spreading  his  arms  as  if  to  embrace  them,  he  welcomed 
future  generations  to  the  great  inheritance  which  we  have  enjoyed,  was  spoken  with  the  most  attrac- 
tive sweetness,  and  that  peculiar  smile  which  in  him  was  always  so  charming.  The  effect  of  the 
whole  was  very  great.  As  soon  as  he  got  home  to  our  lodgings,  all  the  principal  people  then  in 
Plymouth  crowded  about  him.  He  was  full  of  animation,  and  radiant  with  happiness.  But  there 
was  something  about  him  very  grand  and  imposing  at  the  same  time.  I  never  saw  him  at  any  time 
when  he  seemed  to  me  to  be  more  conscious  of  his  own  powers,  or  to  have  a  more  true  and  natural 
enjoym.ent  from  their  possession." 

THE    MEMORABLE    "REPLY   TO    HAYNE." 

Beyond  all  doubt,  Mr.  Webster's  greatest  and  most  renowned  oratorical 
effort  was  his  speech  in  reply  to  Robert  Y.  Hayne  of  South  Carolina,  delivered 
in  the  Senate  on  the  26th  of  January,  1830.  "There  was,"  says  Edward 
Everett,  "a  very  great  excitement  in  Washington,  growing  out  of  the  contro 
versies  of  the  day,  and  the  action  of  the  South ;  and  party  spirit  ran  uncom- 
monly high.  There  seemed  to  be  a  preconcerted  action  on  the  part  of  the 
Southern  members  to  break  down  the  Northern  men,  and  to  destroy  their  force 
and  influence  by  a  premeditated  onslaught. 

*'  Mr.  Hayne's  speech  was  an  eloquent  one,  as  all  know  who  ever  read  it. 
He  was  considered  the  foremost  Southerner  in  debate,  except  Calhoun,  who  was 
Vice-President  and  could  not  enter  the  arena.  Mr.  Hayne  was  the  champion 
of  the  Southern  side.  Those  who  heard  his  speech  felt  much  alarm,  for  two 
reasons  ;  first  on  account  of  its  eloquence  and  power,  and  second,  because  of 
its  many  personalities.  It  was  thought  by  many  who  heard  it,  and  by  some  of 
Mr.  Webster's  personal  friends,  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  answer  the 
speech. 

"I  shared  a  little  myself  in  that  fear  and  apprehension,"  said  Mr.  Everett 
*•  I  knew  from  what  I  heard  concerning  General  Hayne's  speech  that  it  was  a 
very  masterly  effort,  and  delivered  with  a  great  deal  of  power  and  with  an  air 
of  triumph.  I  was  engaged  on  that  day  in  a  committee  of  which  I  was  chair 
man,  and  could  not  be  present  in  the  Senate.  But  immediately  after  the 
adjournment,  I  hastened  to  Mr.  Webster's  house,  with,  I  admit,  some  little 
trepidation,  not  knowing  how  I  should  find  him.  But  I  was  quite  re-assured  in 
a  moment  after  seeing  Mr.  Webster,  and  observing  his  entire  calmness.  He 
seemed  to  be  as  much  at  his  ease  and  as  unmoved  as  I  ever  saw  him.     Indeed, 

7S&  D 


112  THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE. 

at  first  I  was  a  little  afraid  from  this  that  he  was  not  quite  aware  of  the  magni- 
tude of  the  contest.     I  said  at  once  : — 

"•  Mr.  Hayne  has  made  a  speech?' 

*'  *  Yes,  he  has  made  a  speech.' 

"  *  You  reply  in  the  morning  ?' 

•'  *  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Webster,  'I  do  not  propose  to  let  the  case  go  by  default, 
and  without  saying  a  word.' 

" '  Did  you  take  notes,  Mr.  Webster,  of  Mr.  Hayne's  speech.' 

"  Mr.  Webster  took  from  his  vest  pocket  a  piece  of  paper  about  as  big  as 
the  palm  of  his  hand,  and  replied,  '  I  have  it  all :  that  is  his  speech.' 

**I  immediately  arose,"  said  Mr.  Everett,  "and  remarked  to  him  that  I 
would  not  disturb  him  longer  ;  Mr.  Webster  desired  me  not  to  hasten,  as  he  had 
no  desire  to  be  alone  :  but  I  left." 

"On  the  morning  of  the  memorable  day,"  writes  Mr.  Lodge,  "the  Senate 
chamber  was  packed  by  an  eager  and  excited  crowd.  Every  seat  on  the  floor 
and  in  the  galleries  was  occupied,  and  all  the  available  standing-room  was  filled. 
The  protracted  debate,  conducted  with  so  much  ability  on  both  sides,  had  ex~ 
cited  the  attention  of  the  whole  country,  and  had  given  time  for  the  arrival  of 
hundreds  of  interested  spectators  from  all  parts  of  the  Union,  and  especially 
from  New  England. 

"  In  the  midst  of  the  hush  of  expectation,  in  that  dead  silence  which  is  so 
peculiarly  oppressive  because  it  is  possible  only  when  many  human  beings  are 
gathered  together,  Mr.  Webster  arose.  His  personal  grandeur  and  his  majes- 
tic calm  thrilled  all  who  looked  upon  him.  With  perfect  quietness,  unaffected 
apparently  by  the  atmosphere  of  intense  feeling  about  him,  he  said,  in  a  low, 
even  tone : — 

**  *  Mr.  President :  When  the  mariner  has  been  tossed  for  many  days  in  thick  weather  and  on  j 

an  unknown  sea,  he  naturally  avails  himself  of  the  first  pause  in  the  storm,  the  earliest  glance  of  | 

the  sun,  to  take  his  latitude  and  ascertain  how  far  the  elements  have  driven   him  from   his  true  I 

course.     Let  us  imitate  this  prudence  ;  and,  before  we  float  farther  on  the  waves  of  this  debate,  \ 
refer  to  the  point  from  which  we  departed,  that  we  may,  at  least,  be  able  to  conjecture  where  we 
are  now.     I  ask  for  the  reading  of  the  resolution  before  the  Senate.' 

"This  opening  sentence  was  a  piece  of  consummate  art.  The  simple  and 
appropriate  image,  the  low  voice,  the  calm  manner,  relieved  the  strained  excite- 
ment of  the  audience,  which  might  have  ended  by  disconcerting  the  speaker  if 
it  had  been  maintained.  Every  one  was  now  at  his  ease  ;  and  when  the  monoto- 
nous reading  of  the  resolution  ceased,  Mr.  Webster  was  master  of  the  situation, 
and  had  his  listeners  in  complete  control." 

With  breathless  attention  they  followed  him  as  he  proceeded.  The  strong, 
masculine  sentences,  the  sarcasm,  the  pathos,  the  reasoning,  the  burning  appeals 
to  love  of  State  and  country,  flowed  on  unbroken.     As  his  feelings  warmed  the 


DANIEL  WEBSTER. 


ti3 


fire  came  into  his  eyes  ;  there  was  a  glow  in  his  swarthy  cheek  ;  his  strong  right 
arm  seemed  to  sweep  away  resistlessly  the  whole  phalanx  of  his  opponents,  and 
the  deep  and  melodious  cadences  of  his  voice  sounded  like  harmonious  organ 
tones  as  they  filled  the  chamber  with  their  music.  Who  that  ever  read  or  heard 
it  can  forget  the  closing  passage  of  that  glorious  speech  ? 

"  When  my  eyes  shall  be  turned  to  behold  for  the  last  time  the  sun  in  heaven,  may  I  not  see 
him  shining  on  the  broken  and  dishonored  fragments  of  a  once  glorious  Union ;  on  States  dis- 
severed, discordant,  belligerent ;  on  a  land  rent  with  civil  feuds,  or  drenched,  it  may  be,  in  fraternal 
blood  !     Let  their  last  feeble  and  lingering  glance  behold  rather  the  glorious  ensign  of  the  republic, 

now  known  and  honored  throughout  the 
earth,  still  full  high  advanced,  its  arms 
and  trophies  strearning  in  their  original 
lustre,  not  a  stripe  erased  or  polluted,  not 
a  single  star  obscured ;  bearing  for  its 
motto  no  such  miserable  interrogatory  as, 
IVkat  is  all  this  zuorth  ?  or  those  other 
words  of  delusion  and  folly.  Liberty  first, 
and  Union  afterwards ;  but  everywhere, 
spread  all  over  in  characters  of  living 
light,  blazing  on  all  its  ample  folds,  as 
they  float  over  the  sea  and  over  the  land, 
that  other  sentiment,  dear  to  every  true 
American  heart, — Liberty  and  Union, 

NOW   AND    FOREVER,    ONE    AND    INSEPAR- 
ABLE !  " 

As  the  last  words  died  away 
into  silence,  those  who  had  lis- 
tened looked  wonderingly  at  each 
other,  dimly  conscious  that  they 
had  heard  one  of  the  grand 
speeches  which  are  landmarks  in 
the  history  of  eloquence  ;  and  the 
men  of  the  North  and  of  New 
England  went  forth  full  of  the 
!  pride  of  victory,  for  their  champion  had  triumphed,  and  no  assurance  was 
I  needed  to  prove  to  the  world  that  this  time  no  answer  could  be  made. 
I  During  all  the  years   of  Jackson's   and  Van  Buren's  administrations,  Mr. 

I  Webster  continued  in  the  United  States  Senate.     He  opposed  the  innovations 
^and  usurpations  of  Jackson's  reign  ;    he  was  dignified,  prudent,  conservative. 

"Amid  the  flighty  politics  of  the  time,"  says  Parton,  "there  seemed  one  solid 
(thing  in  America  as  long  as  he  sat  in  the  arm-chair  of  the  Senate  Chamber." 

II  Upon  Harrison's  inauguration  in  1841,  Mr.  Webster  became  Secretary  of 
State,  which  oflice  he  held  under  President  Tyler  until  1843.     During  this  time 


JOHN    TYLER. 


114  THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH. 

he  negotiated  the  famous  treaty  with  Lord  Ashburton,  which  setded  a  dispute 
of  long  standing  with  England  over  the  Maine  boundary.  In  1843  he  resigned 
this  posidon.  He  supported  Clay  for  the  Presidency  in  1844,  opposing  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  because  it  would  involve  the  extension  of  slavej-y.  In 
1845  he  was  again  elected  to  the  Senate,  and  opposed  the  prosecution  of  the 
Mexican  war,  the  real  purpose  of  which  was  the  increase  of  slave  territory. 

THE    CRISIS    OF    185O. 

In  1850  the  contest  over  slavery  had  become  so  fierce  that  it  threatened  to 
break  up  the  Union.  The  advocates  of  slavery  were  bent  upon  its  extension, 
while  its  opponents  wished  to  restrict  it  to  the  States  where  it  already  existed. 
Webster  was  always  opposed  to  slavery  ;  but  in  the  crisis  of  1850,  he  thought 
that  all  other  measures  should  be  subordinate  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 
No  one  had  done  more  than  he  to  strengthen  and  perpetuate  the  Union  ;  but 
it  was  his  conviction  that  it  would  be  destroyed  if  the  struggle  over  slavery 
came  to  an  issue  at  that  time.  Every  year  the  attachment  of  the  people  to  the 
Union  was  growing  stronger.  Every  year  the  free  States  were  gaining  upon 
the  slave  States  in  strength,  population,  and  power.  If  the  contest  over  slavery 
could  be  averted,  or  even  postponed,  slavery  would  decline  and  ultimately  die 
out,  and  the  Union  be  preserved  ;  while  if  the  conflict  were  precipitated,  the 
Union  would  be  destroyed,  and  slavery  perpetuated.  Accordingly,  he  gave  his 
support  to  the  Compromise  measures  ;  and  on  the  7th  of  March,  1850,  he  made 
in  advocacy  of  them  the  most  famous  speech  of  his  life,  before  a  great  audience, 
hushed  to  death-like  stillness,  in  the  Senate  chamber. 

"  Mr.  President,"  Mr.  Webster  began,  "  I  wish  to  speak  to-day,  not  as  a  Massachusetts  man, 
nor  as  a  Northern  man,  but  as  an  American,  and  a  member  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, — a 
body  to  which  the  country  looks,  with  confidence,  for  wise,  moderate,  patriotic,  and  healing 
counsels.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  we  live  in  the  midst  of  strong  agitations,  and  are  surrounded 
by  very  considerable  dangers  to  our  institutions  of  government.  The  imprisoned  winds  are  let 
loose.  The  East,  the  West,  the  North,  and  the  stormy  South,  all  combine  to  throw  the  whole 
ocean  into  commotion,  to  toss  its  billows  to  the  skies,  and  disclose  its  profoundest  depths.  ...  I 
have  a  part  to  act,  not  for  my  own  security  or  safety,  for  I  am  looking  out  for  no  fragment  upon 
which  to  float  away  from  the  wreck,  if  wreck  there  must  be,  but  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  and  the 
preservation  of  the  whole  ;  and  there  is  that  which  will  keep  me  to  my  duty  during  this  struggle, 
whether  the  sun  and  the  stars  shall  appear,  or  shall  not  appear,  for  many  days.  I  speak  to-day  for 
the  preservation  of  the  Union.  *  Hear  me  for  my  cause.'  I  speak  to-day  out  of  a  solicitous  and 
anxious  heart,  for  the  restoration  to  the  country  of  that  quiet  and  that  harmony  which  make  the 
blessings  of  this  Union  so  rich  and  so  dear  to  us  all." 

The  Compromise  measures  before  the  Senate  Included  two  provisions  which 
were  particularly  odious  to  the  North, — one  for  the  extension  of  slavery  to  the 
territory  purchased  ^rom  Mexico  ;  the  other  for  a  more  stringent  law  for  the 
capture  and  return  of  fugitive  slaves.     Webster  in  his  speech  advocated  the 


DANIEL  WEBSTER. 


1 1 


acceptance  of  these  provisions  as  part  of  the  Compromise,  and  in  doing  so  gave 
great  offence  to  many  supporters  in  the  North,  who  had  looked  upon  him  as  a 
steady  opponent  of  slavery,  who  would  never  yield  an  inch  to  its  exactions, 
In  his  speech  Webster  maintained  that  the  constitution  recognized  the  right  ot 
the  master  to  the  return  of  his  escaped  slave,  and  that  its  obligations  could  not 
be  evaded  without  a  violation  of  good  faith.  As  to  the  territories,  he  argued 
that  slavery  was  already  by  nature  excluded  from  New  Mexico,  which  was  not 
adapted  to  the  products  of  slave  labor,  and  that  to  "re-enact  a  law  of  God,' 
by  formally  excluding  it,  was  a  needless  irritation  to  the  South.     Although  he 

supported  his  position  with  great 
force,  his  speech  was  nevertheless 
regarded  by  anti-slavery  men  in 
the  North  as  a  surrender  to  the 
slave  power,  made  v/ith  a  view  to 
securing  support  in  the  South  as 
a  candidate  for  the  Presidency, 
He  was  denounced  as  recreant 
to  the  cause  of  freedom,  and  ac- 
cused of  having  sold  himself  to 
the  South.  These  charges  did 
much  to  embitter  the  last  years 
of  his  life  ;  but  he  firmly  adhered 
to  his  course,  supported  the  Com 
promise  measure  in  Congress, 
and  made  a  number  of  speeches 
in  its  favor  throughout  the  North 
After  his  death  there  was  a  grad- 
ual reaction,  and  many  who  had 
condemned  him  came  to  admit 
that  his  course,  whether  wise  or 
not,  was  at  least  guided  by  pure 
and  patriotic  motives. 
In  July,  1850,  while  the  great  Compromise  was  still  before  Congress, 
Webster  was  appointed  by  President  Fillmore  Secretary  of  State,  which  office 
he  held  until  his  death.  His  summer  home  was  an  immense  farm  at  Marshfield, 
near  Plymouth,  Massachusetts,  and  for  many  years  he  had  taken  the  keenest  in 
terest  in  all  the  operations  of  the  farm.  A  friend  who  was  often  with  him  tells 
how  he  enjoyed  his  cattle,  and  how,  on  one  occasion,  after  each  animal  was 
secured  in  his  place,  Mr.  Webster  amused  himself  by  feeding  them  with  ears 
of  corn  from  an  unhusked  pile  lying  on  the  barn  floor.  As  his  son  was  trying 
to  keep  warm  by  playing  with  the  dog,  he  said ;— * 


MILLARD    FILLMORE. 


1 1 6  HIS  LAST  HO  URS. 

"  You  do  not  seem,  my  son,  to  take  much  interest  in  this  ;  but,  for  my  part " 
(and  here  he  broke  an  ear  and  fed  the  pieces  to  the  oxen  on  his  right  and  left 
and  watched  them  as  they  crunched  it),  "  I  like  it.  I  would  rather  be  here  than 
in  he  Senate,"  adding,  with  a  smile  which  showed  all  his  white  teeth,  "  I  think 
it  better  company." 

In  May,  1852,  while  driving  near  his  Marshfield  home,  Mr.  Webster  was 
thrown  from  the  carriage  and  seriously  injured.  Although  he  recovered  suffi- 
ciently to  visit  Washington  afterward,  he  never  regained  his  health,  and  a  few 
months  later,  in  the  autumn  of  1852,  he  died  at  Marshfield.  His  death  and 
burial  were  scenes  of  sublime  pathos.  In  his  last  hours  he  manifested  a  strong 
desire  to  be  conscious  of  the  actual  approach  of  death,  and  his  last  words  were 
"■  I  still  live."  An  immense  concourse  gathered  at  his  funeral.  It  was  a  clear, 
beautiful  autumn  day,  and  his  body  was  brought  from  the  house  and  placed  on 
the  lawn,  under  the  blue  sky,  where  for  several  hours  a  stream  of  people  of 
every  class  moved  past,  to  gaze  for  the  last  time  upon  his  majestic  features. 
One,  a  plain  farmer,  was  heard  to  say  in  a  low  voice,  as  he  turned  away, 
"  Daniel  Webster,  witliout  you  the  world  will  seem  lonesome." 

The  spot  where  Webster  reposes  is  upon  elevated  land,  and  overlooks 
the  sea,  his  mammoth  farm,  the  First  Parish  Church,  and  most  of  the  town  of 
Marshfield,  wide  spreading  marshes,  forests  remote  and  near,  the  tranquil  river, 
and  glistening  brooks.  On  a  pleasant  day  the  sands  of  Cape  Cod  can  be 
descried  from  it,  thirty  miles  directly  to  the  east,  where  the  Pilgrims  first  moored 
their  ship.  The  spot  is  perfectly  retired  and  quiet,  nothing  being  usually  heard 
but  the  solemn  dir^e  of  the  ocean  and  the  answerino-  sicrhs  of  the  winds.  It  is 
the  spot  of  all  others  for  his  resting-place. 

All  in  a  temperate  air,  a  golden  light, 

Rich  with  October,  sad  with  afternoon. 
Fitly  his  frame  was  laid,  with  rustic  rite, 

To  rest  amid  the  ripened  harvest  boon. 
He  loved  the  ocean's  mighty  murmur  deep, 
And  this  shall  lull  him  through  his  dreamless  sleep. 


» 


\ 


THE    PEACE    COMMISSIONERS. 

Three  commissioners  from  the  Confederacy  suggesting  terms  of  Peace  to  President  Lincoln  and  Secretary 

Seward  in  Fortress  Monroe,  January,  1865. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

THE    F^RESERVER.  OK  THE  UNION. 


BY  PROF.  W.  W.  BIRDSALI.* 


dear. 


N  our  gallery  of  famous  Americans  there  is  one  figure  which 
stands  peculiarly  alone.  Before  the  halo  of  martyrdom 
had  made  his  memory  sacred,  even  before  his  divine 
insight  had  perceived  the  time  when  he  should  set  the 
bondman  free,  it  was  declared  that  there  was  for  Abraham 
Lincoln  "  a  niche  in  the  temple  of  fame,  a  niche  near 
Washington."  But  our  feeling  for  Lincoln  is  very  different 
from  the  veneration  with  which  we  regard  the  Father  of 
his  country.  Washington  was  a  stately  figure,  too  digni- 
fied for  near  approach.  He  commanded  respect,  admira- 
tion loyalty  ;  but  our  feeling  for  Lincoln  includes  all  these 
and  with  them  a  peculiar  affection  as  for  one  very  near  and 
It  is  not  only  that  he  is  nearer  to  us  in  point  of  time  ;  his  was  a  nature 
so  large,  an  experience  so  comprehensive,  that  the  minds  and  hearts  of  all  our 
people  find  in  his  a  chord  to  which  their  own  responds  ;  and  within  the  breast 
of  every  American  there  is  something  that  claims  Lincoln  as  his  own. 

The  fame  of  Lincoln  is  increasing  as  the  inner  history  of  the  great  struggle 
for  the  life  of  the  nation  becomes  known.  For  almost  two  decades  after  that 
struggle  had  settled  the  permanence  of  our  government,  our  vision  was  ob- 
scured by  the  near  view  of  the  pygmy  giants  who  "  strutted  their  brief  hour 
upon  the  stage  ; "  our  ears  were  filled  with  the  loud  claims  of  those  who  would 
magnify  their  own  little  part,  and,  knowing  the  facts  concerning  some  one  frac- 
tion of  the  contest  assumed  from  that  knowledge  to  proclaim  the  principle 
which  should  have  governed  the  whole.  Time  is  dissipating  the  mist,  and  we 
are  coming  better  to  know  the  great  man  who  had  no  pride  of  opinion,  who  was 

*  Prof.  Birdsall,  who  is  President  of  Swarthmore  College,  has  for  years  been  a  student 
of  lyincoln's  life, 

119 


I20 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


willing  to  let  Seward  or  Sumner  or  McClellan  imagine  that  he  himself'  was  the 
guiding,  dominating  spirit  of  the  government,  if  so  that  government  might  have 
the  service  of  which  each  was  capable  ;  we  see  more  clearly  the  real  greatness 
of  the  leader  who  was  too  slow  for  one  great  section  of  his  people,  and  too  fast 
for  another,  too  conservative  for  those,  too  radical  for  these  ;  who  refused  to 
make  the  contest  merely  a  war  for  the  negro,  yet  who  saw  the  end  from  the 
beginning,  and  so  led,  not  a  section  of  his  people,  but  the  whole  people,  away 
from  the  Eg)'ptian  plagues  of  slavery  and  disunion,  united  in  sentiment  and 
feeling  and  capable  of  united  action,  to  the  borders  of  the  promised  land.  We 
are  coming  to  appreciate  that  the  "  Father  Abraham  "  who  in  that  Red  Sea 
passage  of  fraternal  strife  was  ready  to  listen  to  every  tale  of  sorrow,  and  who 
wanted  it  said  that  he  "  always  plucked  a  thistle  and  planted  a  flower  when  he 

thouofht  a  flower  would  g^row," 
was  not  only  in  this  sense  the 
father  of  his  people,  but  that  he 
was  a  truly  great  statesman, 
who,  within  the  limits  of  human 
knowledge  and  human  strength, 
guided  the  affairs  of  state  with 
a  wisdom,  a  patience,  a  courage, 
which  belittle  all  praise,  and 
make  him  seem  indeed  a  man 
divinely  raised  up,  not  only  to 
set  the  captive  free,  but  in  order 
that  "government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  and  for  the  peo- 
ple, shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth." 

Abraham  Lincoln  came  into 
the  world  in  1809,  in  a  miserable 
hovel  in  Kentucky.  His  family  were  of  that  peculiar  people,  the  shiftless,  im- 
provident, "poor  whites"  of  the  South.  The  father,  Thomas  Lincoln,  was  a 
typical  specimen  of  his  class, — lazy,  trifling,  spending  his  life  in  the  search  of  some 
place  in  Kentucky,  Indiana,  or  Illinois,  where  the  rich  soil  would  kindly  yield  its 
fruits  without  the  painful  price  of  labor.  Some  three  generations  back,  he  traced 
his  ancestry  to  a  Quaker  origin  in  Pennsylvania ;  but  the  thrift  of  that  peaceful 
people  was  not  entailed  in  the  family,  and  if  the  energy  and  ability  of  the  Vir- 
ginian grandfather  who  came  with  Boone  into  Kentucky  was  transmitted  to  the 
future  President,  certainly  his  father  had  it  not.  The  mother's  ancestry  i«s  un- 
known ;  by  courtesy  she  took  her  mother's  name  of  Hanks.  In  youth  she  was 
both  bright  and  h^ndsQme,  and  possq^sed  of  considerable  intellectual   force 


LINCOLN  S   BOYHOOD   HOME   IN    KENTUCKY. 


BOYHOOD  DAYS. 


121 


She  taught  her  husband  to  read,  and  it  is  fair  to  imagine  that  had  her  lot  been 
less  sordid,  her  life  not  ground  down  by  labor  and  squalor  and  the  vice  about 
her,  she  would  have  been  fitted  to  adorn  a  higher  sphere  of  life.  Her  son, 
though  she  died  when  he  was  in  his  tenth  year,  and  though  another  woman 
tilled  her  place  and  deserved  the  love  and  devotion  with  which  he  repaid  her 
goodness,  cherished  the  memory  of  his  "angel  mother,"  testifying  that  to  he) 
he  owed  *'  all  that  he  was  or  hoped  to  be." 

The  story  of  Lincoln's  boyhood  belongs  to  a  stage  of  civilization  which  our 
people  have  almost  forgotten,  or  which  they  never  knew.  The  removal  to 
Spencer  County,  Indiana  ;  the  "half-faced  camp"  in  which  the  family  lived  ;  the 
pride  with  which,  a  year  later,  they  moved  to  a  log  cabin  with  dirt  floor,  and 
without  doors  or  windows  in  the  openings  made  for  them  ;  the  death  of  the 
mother  ;  the  boy's  first  letter,  begging  a  Kentucky  preacher  to  come  and  preach 
a  sermon  over  the  grave  in  the  wilderness  ;  the  loneliness,  suffering,  and  depri- 
vation that  followed,  complete  a  chapter  v/hose  pathos  must  touch  all  hearts. 
Relief  came  on  the  marriage  of  Thomas  Lincoln  to  a  thrifty  Kentucky  widow, 
whose  advent  necessitated  a  floor  and  doors  and  windows,  who  actually  brought 
a  stock  of  spare  clothing  and  a  clothes-press  for  its  preservation,  at  which  the 
boy,  as  he  afterward  said,  "  began  to  feel  like  a  human  being."  This  was  typical 
frontier  life.  The  hardship,  the  toil,  the  deprivation,  killed  the  mothers  ;  myste- 
rious pestilence  found,  in  the  exposure  and  the  filth,  opportunity  to  sweep  away 
whole  families  ;  vice  abounded  ;  ignorance  and  vulgarity  were  everywhere  ;  but, 
somehow,  out  of  their  midst  came  sometimes  a  strong  character  and  a  great 
man.  From  this  soil  grew  Lincoln.  Schools  were  few,  irregular,  and  poor,  in 
the  backwoods  ;  but  the  young  Lincoln  took  advantage  of  every  such  opportu- 
nity, and  we  find  him  at  seventeen  walking  over  four  miles  for  the  purpose. 
Reading,  writing,  and  elementary  arithmetic,  with  some  irregular  exercises  in 
composition  and  declaiming,  formed  the  whole  of  the  course  of  study,  except  that 
his  last  teacher,  one  Crawford,  astonished  the  natives  by  undertaking  to  teach 
manners.  He  would  require  one  pupil  to  go  outside  and  enter  the  room  as  a 
lady  or  gentleman  would  enter  a  parlor.  Another,  acting  the  part  of  host, 
would  receive  the  in-comer,  and  politely  introduce  him  to  the  company.  When, 
in  after  years,  the  President's  arm  was  wearied  by  the  vigorous  greetings  of 
the  thousands  who  filed  through  the  stately  East  Room  of  the  White  House,  if 
he  ever  thought  of  those  early  mock  receptions,  the  contrast  must  have  afforded 
him  rich  amusement. 

At  seventeen,  Lincoln  had  grown  to  his  full  height ;  he  weighed  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  pounds,  and  was  wiry,  strong,  and  vigorous.  He  wore  low  shoes 
or  moccasins.  His  trousers  were  of  buckskin,  and  usually  bagged  unnecessarily 
in  one  region,  while,  by  reason  of  their  brevity,  they  left  several  inches  of  shin 
bone  exposed.     A  linsey-woolsey  shirt  and  coon-skin  cap,  the  tail  hanging 


1 2 2  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

down  his  back,  completed  this  backwoods  outfit.  It  is  doubtful  whether  he  ever  \  \ 
owned  an  arithmetic  ;  but  leaves  exist,  taken  from  a  book  made  and  bound  by 
him,  in  which  he  copied  problems  illustrating  the  various  principles  of  arith- 
metic. One  page  is  devoted  to  subtraction  of  Long  Measure,  Land  Measure, 
and  Dry  Measure,  the  headings  being  written  in  a  bold  hand,  and  each  subject 
illustrated  by  two  or  three  problems.  About  the  edges  are  some  extra  flour- 
ishes and  ciphering,  and  at  the  bottom  the  touching  lines  : — 

"Abraham  Lincoln 
his  hand  and  pen 
he  will  be  good  but 
god  knows  When." 

His  penmanship  came  to  be  regular  in  form,  and  better  than  that  of  any 
of  his  mates  ;  the  samples  which  we  see  of  his  handwriting  as  a  man  are  far 
above  the  average.  He  kept  a  copy-book,  in  which  he  entered  everything  that 
pleased  his  fancy.  When  paper  failed,  he  wrote  his  selections  with  chalk  or 
charcoal  upon  a  plank  or  a  shingle.  He  wrote  the  first  drafts  of  compositions 
upon  a  smooth  wooden  shovel,  which  he  planed  off  for  each  new  effort.  He 
devoured  such  books  as  he  could  borrow,  and  the  Bible  and  ^sop's  Fables 
were  for  a  long  time  the  only  ones  he  owned.  Beside  these,  "  Robinson  Cru- 
soe," Bunyan's  "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  a  History  of  the  United  States,  and 
Weems'  "  Life  of  Washington,"  formed  the  bulk  of  his  early  reading.  A  copy  of 
the  Statutes  of  Indiana  was  borrowed  from  the  constable,  and  studied  with  a  care 
which  possibly  indicated  his  future  career  as  a  lawyer.  His  passion  for  reading 
was  such  as  to  cause  remark  among  his  neighbors,  who  wondered  to  see  the 
great  awkward  boy,  after  a  day  of  labor,  crouch  in  a  corner  of  the  log  cabin,  or 
spread  his  ungainly  body  under  a  tree  outside,  and  bury  himself  in  a  book,  while 
he  devoured  the  corn  bread  which  formed  his  supper.  He  delighted  in  "  speechi- 
fying," as  he  called  it,  and  upon  the  slightest  encouragement  would  mount  a 
stump  and  practice  upon  his  fellow-laborers.  He  helped  to  support  the  family 
by  working  in  his  father's  clearing,  or  by  hiring  to  neighbors  to  plow,  dig  ditches, 
chop  wood,  or  split  rails,  and  for  a  time  was  employed  as  clerk  in  the  cross-roads 
store.  A  journey  to  New  Orleans  as  deck-hand  on  a  flat-boat,  widened  his 
experience  of  mankind,  and  gave  him  his  first  glimpse  of  slavery. 

Early  in  1830,  he  went,  with  the  family,  a  fifteen  days'  journey  to  Illinois, 
where,  in  Macon  County,  five  miles  from  Decatur,  a  new  settlement  was  made. 
On  a  bluff  overlooking-  the  Sangamon  River  another  log  cabin  was  built ;  land 
was  fenced  with  the  historic  rails,  some  of  which,  thirty  years  later,  were  to  play 
a  prominent  part  in  the  presidential  campaign  ;  and  Lincoln,  being  now  of  age, 
left  his  fathv'::r*s  family  in  these  new  quarters,  to  earn  his  living  for  himself  The 
tenderness  of  heart  which  characterized  him  through  life  was  well  illustrated  by 
his  turning  back,  while  on  the  journey  to  Illinois,  and  wading  an  icy  river  to 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS. 


12- 


rescue  a  worthless  pet  dog  which  had  fallen  behind,  and  could  not  get  across, 
and  which  "  Abe  "  could  not  bear  to  leave  whimpering  and  whining  on  the  oppo- 
site shore.  This  same  disposition  had  led  him  at  all  times  to  protest  against  the 
cruelty  to  animals  practiced  by  his  mates,  and  is  only  one  of  the  traits  which 
marked  him  as  of  a  different  mould. 

Another  journey  to  New  Orleans  was  his  first  employment  after  leaving 
home.  Here  he  witnessed  a  slave  auction.  The  scene  impressed  itself  upon 
his  heart  and  memory,  and  he  is  said  to  have  declared  to  his  cousin  and  com 
panion,  "If  I  ever  get  a  chance  to  hit  that  institution,  /'//  hit  it  hard.'' 

For  several  years  he  lived   at   New  Salem,  Illinois,  serving  as  steamboat 


HOME   OF    LINCOLN    AT   GENTRYVILLE,    INDIANA. 


pilot,  and  as  clerk  in  a  store  and  mill.  At  the  time  of  the  "  Black  Hawk  War," 
being  out  of  employment,  he  volunteered  for  service,  and  was  elected  captain. 
Returning  at  the  close  of  the  expedkion,  he  bought  an  interest  in  a  store,  for 
which  he  went  in  debt,  and,  presently  selling  it  on  credit  and  his  debtor  abscond- 
ing, he  found  himself  burdened  with  claims  which  it  took  many  years  to  dis 
charge. 

He  now  began  in  earnest  to  study  law,  walking  to  Springfield  to  borrow 
books  and  return  them  ;  and,  as  a  means  of  living  in  the  meantime,  he  entered 
the  employ  of  the  county  surveyor  and  laboriously  studied  the  principles  of  land 
measurement.     Presently  he  began  to  practice  law  a  little,  representing  friends 


124 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


before  a  justice  of  the  peace,  and,  in  1834,  he  was  elected  to  the  Legislature, 
and  served  his  county  as  a  representative  for  four  consecutive  terms.  Some 
elements  of  his  popularity  were  his  acknowledged  honesty  and  fairness,  his 
wonderful  gift  as  a  story-teller,  his  prowess  as  a  wrestler,  and,  when  actual 
necessity  arose,  as  a  fighter,  and  his  reputation  for  knowledge.  This  latter  had 
been  acquired  by  his  habit  of  studying  to  the  bottom  whatever  subject  he  had 
in  hand,  and,  although  his  range  of  information  was  not  wide,  when  he  under- 
took the  discussion  of  any  topic  he  soon  demonstrated  that  he  thoroughly 
understood  it. 

His  service  in  the  Legislature  was  not  remarkable.     The  country  in  which 


OPENING    OF   THE    ILLINOIS    AND    MICHIGAN    CANAL. 


he  lived  was  just  then  wild  upon  the  importance  of  public  improvements,  par- 
ticularly  in  the  form  of  interior  waterways,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  Lincoln 
should  declare  an  ambition  to  become  "  the  De  Witt  Clinton  of  Illinois  ;"  but 
the  net  result  of  the  enterprise  was  a  gigantic  State  debt.  He  was  popular  in 
the  Legislature,  and  was  twice  the  nominee  of  his  party  for  Speaker,  a  nominal 
honor  only,  as  the  State  was  at  that  time  Democratic.  His  most  notable  act 
during  this  time  was  his  joining  with  a  single  colleague,  in  a  written  protest 
against  the  passage  of  pro-slavery  resolutions.  This  protest  appears  on  the 
records,  and  bases  the  opposition  of  the  two  signers  upon  their  behqf  "th^t  the 


A   PECULIAR  LAWYER.  125 

Institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on  both  injustice  and  bad  policy,"  a  declaration 
of  faith  which  required  some  moral  courage  in  1837,  and  in  a  community  largely 
of  Southern  origin.  One  other  transaction  which  deserves  mention  was  the 
carrying  through  the  Legislature  of  a  bill  removing  the  capital  from  Vandalia 
to  Springfield.  This  was  accomplished  after  much  political  "wire-working,"  in 
which  Lincoln  was  the  leader,  the  adverse  claims  of  a  number  of  other  towns 
being  strenuously  urged  by  their  representatives. 

In  the  meantime  Lincoln  had  been  admitted  to  the  bar,  and,  in  1837, 
removed  to  Springfield,  where  he  had  formed  a  partnership  with  an  attorney  of 
established  reputation.  He  became  a  successful  lawyer,  not  so  much  by  his 
knowledge  of  the  law,  for  this  was  never  great,  as  by  his  ability  as  an  advocate, 
and  by  reason  of  his  sterling  integrity.  He  would  not  be  a  party  to  misrepre- 
sentation, and,  after  endeavoring  to  dissuade  the  parties  from  litigation,  refused 
to  take  cases  which  involved  such  action.  He  even  was  known  to  abandon  a 
case  which  brought  him  unexpectedly  into  this  attitude.  In  his  first  case  before 
the  United  States  Circuit  Court  he  said  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  find  any 
authorities  supporting  his  side  of  the  case,  but  had  found  several  favoring  the 
opposite,  which  he  proceeded  to  quote.  The  very  appearance  of  such  an 
attorney  in  any  case  must  have  gone  far  to  win  the  jury ;  and,  when  deeply 
stirred,  the  power  of  his  oratory,  and  the  invincible  logic  of  his  argument,  made 
him  a  most  formidable  advocate.  "  Yes,"  he  was  overheard  to  say  to  a  would-be 
client,  "  we  can  doubtless  gain  your  case  for  you  ;  we  can  set  a  whole  neighbor- 
hood at  loggerheads  ;  we  can  distress  a  widowed  mother  and  her  six  fatherless 
children,  and  thereby  get  for  you  six  hundred  dollars  to  which  you  seem  to  have 
a  legal  claim,  but  which  rightfully  belongs,  it  appears  to  me,  as  much  to  the 
woman  and  her  children  as  it  does  to  you.  You  must  remember  that  some 
things  legally  right  are  not  morally  right.  We  shall  not  take  your  case,  but 
will  give  you  a  little  advice  for  which  we  will  charge  you  nothing.  You  seem 
to  be  a  sprightly,  energetic  man  ;  we  would  advise  you  to  try  your  hand  at 
making  six  hundred  dollars  in  some  other  way." 

HIS    PECULIAR    HONESTY. 

His  absolute  honesty  and  care  for  that  which  was  not  his  own  is  illustrated 
by  his  conduct  as  a  postmaster.  He  had  served  in  that  capacity  at  New  Salem, 
and  when  that  office  was  discontinued,  found  himself  indebted  to  the  orovern- 
ment  to  the  amount  of  sixteen  or  eighteen  dollars.  For  some  reason  this  money 
was  not  demanded  for  several  years,  and  in  the  meantime  he  was  in  debt,  and 
very  poor,  frequently  being  compelled  to  borrow  money  to  supply  his  pressing 
needs  ;  but  an  agent  of  the  department  calling  one  day  and  presenting  the 
account,  he  produced  an  old  blue  sock,  from  which  he  poured  the  identical  silver 
and  copper  coins  with  which  his  New  Salem  neighbors  had  purchased  stamps, 
and  to  the  exact  amount  required. 


126  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Early  in  life  Lincoln  became  attached  to  an  attractive  and  estimable  girl, 
and  they  were  to  have  been  married  when  his  law  studies  were  completed.  Her 
sudden  death  was  such  a  shock  to  him,  and  threw  him  into  such  a  condition  of 
melancholy,  that  it  was  feared  by  his  friends  that  his  reason  would  be  perma- 
nently dethroned.  Some  years  later  he  married  Miss  Mary  Todd,  a  young 
lady  of  Kentucky  parentage  and  of  good  family.  She  was  possessed  of  some 
culture  and  a  vigorous  and  sprightly  mind.  Her  temper,  however,  was  erratic, 
and  those  who  knew  the  family  life  intimately  represent  it  as  full  of  trials. 
Some  of  the  incidents  reported  seem  intensely  amusing  at  this  distance  of  time, 
but  must  have  been  painful  in  the  extreme  as  actual  occurrences.  Such  trials 
continued  throughout  Mr.  Lincoln's  life,  and  were  the  occasion  of  continual 
petty  annoyance,  and  frequent  embarrassment  in  the  discharge  of  his  public 
duties. 

He  continued  to  "  ride  the  circuit,"  being  a  great  portion  of  the  time  absent 
from  home  in  attendance  at  court,  with  the  exception  of  his  single  term  in  Con- 
gress, until  his  election  to  the  presidency.  He  was  acquiring  a  very  great  influ- 
ence in  his  district  and  in  the  State,  was  one  of  the  leading  managers  of  the 
Whig  party,  and  was  usually  a  candidate  for  presidential  elector.  When  in 
1846,  according  to  the  peculiar  system  of  rotation  adopted  by  the  Illinois  politi- 
cians, it  was  his  turn  to  go  to  Congress,  he  did  not  distinguish  himself,  though 
he  seems  to  have  made  a  favorable  impression  upon  the  party  leaders,  and  the 
acquaintance  thus  formed  was  of  great  use  to  him  later. 

Going  back  to  Illinois,  he  again  settled  to  the  practice  of  law.  It  was  in 
1853  that  he  received  his  largest  fee.  It  was  a  case  in  which  he  defended  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad  in  a  suit  brought  to  collect  taxes  allegred  to  be  due,  and 
in  which  he  was  successful.  He  presented  a  bill  for  two  thousand  dollars,  which 
the  company  refused  to  allow,  when,  after  consultation  with  other  lawyers,  he 
brought  suit  for  five  thousand,  which  he  received. 

It  was  not  until  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  in  1854,  that  Lincoln 
was  really  aroused.  He  had  always  opposed  the  extension  of  slavery,  holding 
opinions  well  indicated  by  his  protest  in  the  Legislature,  already  mentioned,  and 
by  the  acute  remark  that  it  was  "  singular  that  the  courts  would  hold  that  a  man 
never  lost  his  right  to  his  property  that  had  been  stolen  from  him,  but  that  he 
instantly  lost  his  right  to  himself  if  he  was  stolen."  The  great  question  now 
absorbed  his  interest.  He  was  constantly  more  bold  in  his  position,  and 
more  powerful  in  his  denunciation  of  the  encroachments  of  the  slave  power. 
He  became,  therefore,  the  natural  champion  of  his  party  in  the  campaigns  in 
which  Senator  Douglas  undertook  to  defend  before  the  people  of  his  State  his 
advocacy  of  "  Squatter  Sovereignty,"  or  the  right  of  the  people  of  each  Terri- 
tory to  decide  whether  it  should  be  admitted  as  a  slave  or  a  free  State,  and  of 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  by  which  the   Missouri  Compromise  was  repealed. 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES.  127 

(51?^  Henry  Clay.)  The  first  great  battle  between  these  two  giants  of  debate 
took  place  at  the  State  Fair  at  Springfield,  in  October  of  1854.  Douglas  made, 
on  Tuesday,  a  great  speech  to  an  unprecedented  concourse  of  people,  and  was 
the  lion  of  the  hour.  The  next  day  Lincoln  replied,  and  his  effort  was  such  as  to 
surprise  both  his  friends  and  his  opponents.  It  was  probably  the  first  occasion 
on  which  he  reached  his  full  power.  In  the  words  of  a  friendly  editor  :  "  The 
Nebraska  bill  was  shivered,  and  like  a  tree  of  the  forest  was  torn  and  rent  asunder 
by  the  hot  bolts  of  truth.  ...  At  the  conclusion  of  this  speech  every  man  and 
child  felt  that  it  was  unanswerable." 

It  was  arranged  that  Lincoln  was  to  follow  Douglas  and  reply  to  his  speeches, 
and  the  two  met  in  joint  debate  at  Peoria,  after  which  Douglas  proposed  that 
they  should  both  abandon  the  debate,  agreeing  to  cancel  his  appointments  and 
make  no  more  speeches  during  that  campaign,  if  Lincoln  would  do  the  same. 
Lincoln  somewhat  weakly  agreed  to  this  proposition,  and  the  next  day,  when 
Douglas  pleaded  hoarseness  as  an  excuse,  he  gallantly  refused  to  take  advan- 
tage of  "  Judge  Douglas's  indisposition."  He  faithfully  kept  to  the  agreement, 
though  Douglas  allowed  himself,  on  one  occasion,  to  be  tempted  into  violating  it 

THE  DEBATES  WITH  DOUGLAS. 

But  it  was  the  campaign  of  1858  which  made  Lincoln  famous,  which  fully 
demonstrated  his  powers,  and  which  prepared  him  for  the  presidency.  Douglas 
was  immensely  popular.  His  advocacy  of  territorial  expansion  appealed  to  the 
patriotism  of  the  young  and  ardent;  his  doctrine  of  "Popular  Sovereignty" 
was  well  calculated  to  mislead  the  shallow  thinker  ;  and  his  power  in  debate  had 
given  him  the  name  of  "  the  Little  Giant."  True,  the  "  Dred  Scott  decision  "  had 
made  it  difficult  to  hold  his  Northern  constituency  to  the  toleration  of  any  atti- 
tude which  could  be  construed  as  favoring  the  South,'-'  but  his  opposition  to  the 
Lecompton  pro-slavery  constitution,  on  the  ground  that  it  had  never  been  fairly 
voted  upon  by  the  people  of  Kansas,  not  only  maintained  the  loyalty  of  his  par- 

*  The  "Dred  Scott  decision"  was  delivered  by  Chief  Justice  Taney,  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  on  March  6,  1857,  immediately  after  the  inauguration  of  President  Buchanan. 
Dred  Scott  was  a  slave  who  had  been  taken  by  his  master  from  Missouri  to  Illinois  and  Wisconsin, 
where  slavery  was  illegal,  and  had  lived  there  for  some  years.  He  was  then  taken  back  to  Missouri, 
and  having  been  whipped,  he  brought  suit  against  his  master  for  assault,  pleading  that  he  was  made 
free  by  being  taken  into  a  free  State,  where  slavery  was  illegal.  The  Missouri  Circuit  Court  de- 
cided in  his  favor  ;  but  the  case  was  appealed  to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  which  decided 
ihat  the  Missouri  Compromise,  limiting  the  area  of  slavery,  was  unconstitutional,  and  that  therefore 
slaveholders  could  enter  any  free  State  with  slaves  and  hold  them  there  as  property  ;  that  negroes,  be- 
ing incafiable  of  becoming  citizens,  had  no  standing  in  court,  and  could  not  maintain  a  suit  for  any 
purpose.  As  this  decision  overthrew  all  barriers  against  the  extension  of  slavery,  even  to  the  free 
States,  and  declared  that  the  negro  had  no  rights  which  the  courts  would  protect,  it  caused  great 
excitement  in  the  North,  and  aroused  intense  hostility  to  the  aggressive  demands  of  the  slave  power. 


128  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

tisans,  but  led  Horace  Greeley  and  some  other  leaders  of  the  new  Republican 
party  to  favor  his  re-election  to  the  Senate,  hoping  to  separate  him  from  the  pro- 
slavery  interest,  and  thus  introduce  a  split  in  the  Democratic  party.  But  Lin- 
coln and  those  who  advised  with  him  were  firmly  of  opinion  that  the  anti-slavery 
cause  was  safe  only  in  the  hands  of  those  who  had  consistently  been  its  advo- 
cates, and  took  high  and"  strong  ground  in  favor  of  an  aggressive  campaign^ 
Lincoln  had  come  to  be  a  really  great  political  manager.  He  cared  little  foi 
temporary  success,  if  only  he  could  foster  the  growth  of  a  right  public  opinion, 
and  thus  make  possible  a  future  victory  which  would  be  permanent.  So,  in  this 
campaign,  when  he  proposed  to  press  upon  his  opponent  the  question  whether 
there  were  lawful  means  by  which  slavery  could  be  excluded  from  a  Territory 
before  its  admission  as  a  state,  his  friends  suggested  that  Douglas  would  reply 
that  slavery  could  not  exist  unless  it  was  desired  by  the  people,  and  unless  pro- 
tected by  territorial  legislation,  and  that  this  answer  would  be  sufficiently  satis- 
factory to  insure  his  re-election.  But  Lincoln  replied,  *'  I  am  after  larger  game. 
If  Douglas  so  answers,  he  can  never  be  President,  and  the  battle  of  i860  is 
worth  a  hundred  of  this."  Both  predictions  were  verified.  The  people  of  the 
South  might  have  forgiven  Douglas  his  opposition  to  the  Lecompton  Constitution, 
but  they  could  not  forgive  the  promulgation  of  a  doctrine  which,  in  spite  of  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  would  keep  slavery  out  of  a  Territory  ;  and  so,  although 
Douglas  was  elected  and  Lincoln  defeated,  the  Democracy  was  divided,  and  it 
was  impossible  for  Douglas  to  command  Southern  votes  for  the  Presidency. 

The  campaign  had  been  opened  by  a  speech  of  Lincoln  which  startled  the^ 
country  by  its  boldness  and  its  power.  It  was  delivered  at  the  Republican  con-» 
vention  which  nominated  him  for  Senator,  and  had  been  previously  submitted  to 
his  confidential  advisers.  They  strenuously  opposed  the  introduction  of  its. 
opening  sentences.  He  was  warned  that  they  would  be  fatal  to  his  election, 
and,  in  the  existing  state  of  public  feeling,  might  permanently  destroy  his  politi- 
cal prospects.  Lincoln  could  not  be  moved.  "It  is  true,'''  said  he,  "and  I  iirill 
deliver  it  as  written.  I  would  rather  be  defeated  with  these  expressions  in 
my  speech  held  up  and  discussed  before  the  people  than  be  victorious  without 
them."  The  paragraph  gave  to  the  country  a  statement  of  the  problem  as  terse 
and  vigorous  and  even  more  complete  than  Seward's  "irrepressible  conflict," 
and  as  startling  as  Sumner's  proposition  that  "freedom  was  national,  slavery 
sectional."  "A  house  divided  against  itself,"  said  Lincoln,  "  cannot  stand.  I 
believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I 
do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved  ;  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall ;  but 
I  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other. 
Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  farther  spread  of  it,  and  place  it 
where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful 


ms  VIEW  OP  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION.  129 

in  all  the  States, — old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South."  It  seems  small 
wonder  that  Douglas  sliould  interpret  this  as  a  threat  of  sectional  strife,  should 
magnify  it  and  distort  it,  and  that  it  should  thus  be  the  means  of  driving  many 
timid  voters  to  the  support  of  the  more  politic  candidate. 

Never  had  the  issues  of  a  political  campaign  seemed  more  momentous ; 
never  was  one  more  ably  contested.  The  triumph  of  the  doctrine  of  "popular 
sovereignty,"  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  had  opened  the  Territories  to  slavery^ 
while  it  professed  to  leave  the  question  to  be  decided  by  the  people.  To  the 
question  whether  the  people  of  a  Territory  could  exclude  slavery  Douglas  had 
answered,  "  That  is  a  question  for  the  courts  to  decide,"  but  the  Dred  Scott 
decision,  practically  holding  that  the  Federal  Constitution  guaranteed  the  right 
to  hold  slaves  in  the  Territories,  seemed  to  make  the  pro-slavery  cause  tri- 
umphant. The  course  of  Douglas  regarding  the  Lecompton  Constitution, 
however,  had  made  it  possible  for  his  friends  to  describe  him  as  "  the  true 
champion  of  freedom,"  while  Lincoln  continually  exposed,  with  merciless  force, 
the  illogical  position  of  his  adversary,  and  his  complete  lack  of  poHtical 
morality. 

Douglas  claimed  that  the  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  "originated  when 
God  made  man  and  placed  good  and  evil  before  him,  allowing  him  to  choose 
upon  his  own  responsibility."  But  Lincoln  declared  with  great  solemnity:  "  No  ; 
God  did  not  place  good  and  evil  before  man,  telling  him  to  make  his  choice. 
On  the  contrary,  God  did  tell  him  there  was  one  tree  of  the  fruit  of  which  he 
should  not  eat,  upon  pain  of  death."  The  question  was  to  him  one  of  right, 
a  high  question  of  morality,  and  only  upon  such  a  question  could  he  ever  be 
fully  roused.  "  Slavery  is  wrong,"  was  the  keynote  of  his  speeches.  But  he 
did  not  take  the  position  of  the  abolitionists.  He  even  admitted  that  the  South 
was  entitled,  under  the  Constitution,  to  a  national  fugitive  slave  law,  though 
his  soul  revolted  at  the  law  which  was  then  in  force.  His  position,  as  already 
cited,  was  that  of  the  Republican  party.  He  would  limit  the  extension  of 
slavery,  and  place  it  in  such  a  position  as  would  insure  its  ultimate  extinction.  It 
was  a  moderate  course,  viewed  from  this  distance  of  time,  but  in  the  face  of  a 
dominant,  arrogant,  irascible  pro-slavery  sentiment  it  seemed  radical  in  the 
extreme,  calculated,  indeed,  to  fulfill  a  threat  he  had  made  to  the  Governor  of 
the  State.  He  had  been  attempting  to  secure  the  release  of  a  young  negro 
from  Springfield  who  was  wrongfully  detained  in  New  Orleans,  and  who  was  in 
danger  of  being  sold  for  prison  expenses.  Moved  to  the  depths  of  his  being 
by  the  refusal  of  the  official  to  interfere,  Lincoln  exclaimed  :  "By  God,  Governor, 
I'll  make  the  ground  of  this  country  too  hot  for  the  foot  of  a  slaved 

Douglas  was  re-elected,  Lincoln  had  hardly  anticipated  a  different  result, 
and  he  had  nothing  of  the  feeling  of  defeat.  On  the  contrary,  he  felt  that  the 
corner-stone  of  victory  had  been  laid.     He  had  said  of  his  opening  speech :  *Tf 

8S&D 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   SON    "TAD." 


FAME  IN  A  WIDER  FIELD.  13 1 

I  had  to  draw  a  pen  across  my  record,  and  erase  my  whole  life  from  sight,  and 
I  had  one  poor  gift  or  choice  left  as  to  what  I  should  save  from  the  wreck,  I 
should  choose  that  speech,  and  leave  it  to  the  world  unerased  ;"  and  now,  he 
wrote  :  "The  fight  must  go  on.  The  cause  of  liberty  must  not  be  surrendered 
at  the  end  of  one  or  even  one  hundred  defeats.  Douglas  had  the  ingenuity  to 
be  supported  in  the  late  contest  both  as  the  best  means  to  break  down  and  to 
uphold  the  slave  interest.  No  ingenuity  can  keep  these  antagonistic  elements 
in  harmony  long.  Another  explosion  will  soon  come."  And  the  explosion  was 
only  two  years  in  coming.  Neither  was  he  in  doubt  about  the  effect  of  his  own 
labors.  'T  believe  I  have  made  some  marks,"  said  he,  "which  will  tell  for  the 
cause  of  liberty  long  after  I  am  gone."  He  had  bidden  his  countrymen  "  Re- 
turn to  the  fountain  whose  waters  spring  close  by  the  blood  of  the  Revolution. 
Think  nothing  of  me  ;  take  no  thought  for  the  political  fate  of  any  man  whom- 
soever, but  come  back  to  the  truths  that  are  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence;" and  defeat,  which  he  foresaw  must  be  temporary,  was  as  nothing  to  him. 
But  his  great  contest  had  made  him  famous.  It  is  often  said  that  Lincoln 
in  i860  was  practically  unknown  outside  of  Illinois.  But  this  cannot  be  main- 
tained. In  Illinois  his  name  was  a  household  word.  "  Come  to  our  place," 
wrote  a  political  manager  in  1852,  "people  place  more  confidence  in  you  than 
in  any  other  man.  Men  who  do  not  read  want  the  story  told  as  only  you  can  tell 
it.  Others  may  make  fine  speeches,  but  it  would  not  be,  '  Lincoln  said  so  in  his 
speech.'  "  And  now  his  name  was  on  the  lips  of  every  earnest  advocate  of 
freedom  the  country  over.  At  the  East  there  was  deep  and  widespread  interest 
in  him.  The  people  who  looked  up  to  Seward  and  Sumner  and  Wendell 
Phillips  as  the  exponents  of  the  gospel  of  freedom  rejoiced  at  hearing  of  this 
new  prophet,  albeit  he  came  from  the  wilderness. 

HIS    COOPER    INSTITUTE    SPEECH. 

So,  when  in  i860  Lincoln  appeared  by  invitation  to  deliver  an  address  at 
the  Cooper  Institute  in  New  York,  Horace  Greeley  declared  that  "  No  man  has 
been  welcomed  by  such  an  audience  of  the  intellect  and  mental  culture  of  our 
city  since  the  days  of  Clay  and  Webster."  No  audience  was  ever  more  sur- 
prised. The  scholarly  people  who  thronged  the  immense  audience-room  had  not 
really  believed  that  any  genuine  good  could  come  out  of  the  Nazareth  of  Illinois, 
and  the  awkward,  uncouth  appearance  of  the  speaker  did  not  reassure  them. 
They  expected  to  hear  a  ranting,  shallow  stump  speech,  which  might  be  adapted 
to  persuade  the  ignorant  people  of  a  prairie  State,  but  the  hearing  of  which 
would  rather  be  an  ordeal  to  their  cultured  ears.  But  the  effort  was  dignified, 
calm,  clear,  luminous.  If  it  was  not  the  speech  of  a  scholar,  it  was  that  of  a 
man  full  of  his  great  subject,  and  with  a  scholar's  command  of  all  that  bore  upon 
it.     It  is  said  that  those  who  afterward   performed  the  work  of  publishing  the 


1  ^2  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

speech  as  a  campaign  document  were  three  weeks  in  verifying  the  statements 
and  finding  the  historical  records  referred  to. 

He  had  taken  the  East  by  storm.  He  was  invited  to  speak  in  many  places 
in  New  England,  and  everywhere  met  with  the  most  flattering  reception,  which 
surprised  almost  as  much  as  it  delighted  him.  It  astonished  him  to  hear  that 
the  Professor  of  Rhetoric  of  Yale  College  took  notes  of  his  speech  and  lectured 
upon  them  to  his  class,  and  followed  him  to  Meriden  the  next  evening  to  hear 
him  again  for  the  same  purpose.  An  intelligent  hearer  described  as  remarkable 
"  the  clearness  of  your  statements,  the  unanswerable  style  of  your  reasoning,  and 
especially  your  illustrations,  which  were  romance  and  pathos,  fun  and  logic,  all 
welded  together."  Perhaps  his  style  could  not  be  better  described.  He  him^ 
self  said  that  it  used  to  anger  him,  when  a  child,  to  hear  statements  which  he 
could  not  understand,  and  he  was  thus  led  to  form  the  habit  of  turning  over  a 
thought  until  it  was  in  language  any  boy  could  comprehend. 

Lincoln  had  in  1856  been  somewhat  talked  of  by  his  illinois  friends  for 
Vice-President,  and  even  for  President ;  but  he  had  felt  that  other  men,  of  wider 
reputation,  would  better  lead  the  party.  Now,  however,  he  thought  himself  a 
proper  candidate,  and  freely  consulted  with  his  friends  in  furtherance  of  his 
canvass.  When  the  convention  met  in  Chicago,  the  candidacy  of  Seward  was 
so  prominent,  and  his  managers  had  such  a  reputation  for  political  finesse,  that 
it  was  with  a  surprise  amounting  to  disgust  that  they  saw  themselves  out-shouted 
and  out-generaled  by  their  Western  competitors.  Lincoln  was  nominated  on 
the  third  ballot,  amid  such  enthusiasm  as  had  never  been  equaled. 

As  had  been  predicted,  the  Democrats  had  not  been  able  to  hold  together, 
the  pro-slavery  wing  refusing  to  endorse  the  nomination  of  Douglas,  and  putting 
Breckinridge  in  the  field.  The  campaign  was  conducted  with  great  enthusiasm 
on  the  part  of  the  Republicans,  all  the  candidates  for  the  nomination  uniting  in 
working  for  the  success  of  Lincoln  and  Hamlin,  and  the  result  was  a  majority  I 
of  fifty-seven  in  the  electoral  colleges. 

From  this  time,  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  the  History  of  the  Rebellion. 
It  cannot  be  adequately  wriit-ten  here.  Every  day  was  crowded  with  events 
which  seem  unimportant  only  because  overshadowed  by  others  whose  world-wide 
influence  commands  attention.  Hardly  was.the  election  over  when  active  steps 
were  taken  in  the  South  looking  toward  disunion.  By  February,  seven  State 
Legislatures  had  passed  ordinances  of  secession,  and  the  Southern  Confederacy 
was  practically  organized.  Few  upon  either  side  expected  war,  but  the  air  was 
full  of  trouble,  and  the  future  looked  very  dark. 

On  the  nth  of  February,  Lincoln  took  leave  of  his  old  friends  and  neigh- 
bors in  a  little  speech  of  most  pathetic  beauty,  and  journeyed  to  Washington  by 
way  of  all  the  principal  cities  of  the  North.  Everywhere  he  was  received  with 
acclamation,  and  at  every  stop  he  made  speeches  full  of  tact,  and  largely  de- 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  WAR, 


^ZZ 


voted  to  an  attempt  to  quiet  the  general  apprehension  and  to  demonstrate  to 
the  people  of  the  South  that  they  had  no  just  cause  of  complaint.  There  was 
intense  excitement  throughout  the  country,  and  especially  in  Washington,  where 
threats  were  freely  made  that  Lincoln  should  never  be  inauo-urated.  The 
veteran  General  Scott,  however,  who  was  in  command,  was  thoroughly  loyal,  and 
determined  to  prevent  violence.  He  quietly  organized  a  small  but  efficient  force 
of  well-armed  men,  in  citizen's  dress,  who  guarded  the  Capitol  and  streets  until 
after  the  inauguration.  Threatened  violence  in  Baltimore  caused  a  change  of 
Lincoln's  route  from  Harrisburg, 
by  which  he  arrived  in  Washing- 
ton unexpectedly,  and  the  re- 
maining time  until  March  4th 
was  spent  in  preparing  his  Inau- 
gural. 

When  Chief-Justice  Taney 
had  administered  the  oath  of 
office,  the  new  President  deliv- 
ered the  Inaugural,  which,  while 
it  w^as  largely  addressed  to  the 
Southern  people,  must  have  been 
really  intended  to  strengthen  the 
hearts  of  the  friends  of  the  Union. 
It  foreshadowed  fully  and  faitli- 
fully  the  course  of  his  administra- 
tion, and  left  no  slightest  excuse 
for  secession  or  rebellion.  He 
pointed  out  in  the  kindest  possi- 
ble manner  the  inevitable  results 
of  disunion,  and,  while  sacrificing 
no  principle,  and  declaring  his 
purpose  to  fulfill  his  oath  and  to 
preserve  the  Union,  the  tone  of 

the  address  has  been  likened  to  that  of  a  sorrowing  father  to  his  wayward 
children. 

THE    GREAT    CIVIL   WAR. 

His  task  was  such  as  no  man  ever  faced  before.  The  great  republic,  the 
only  great  and  promising  experiment  in  self-government  that  the  world  had 
ever  seen,  seemed  about  to  end,  after  all,  in  failure.  It  w^as  to  be  determined 
whether  the  Constitution  contained  the  germs  of  its  own  destruction,  or  whether 
the  government  established  under  its  provisions  possessed  the  necessary 
strength  to  hold  itself  together. 


GENERAL    WINFIELD    SCOTT. 


134 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Mr.  Lincoln  called  to  his  cabinet  the  ablest  men  of  his  party,  two  of 
whom,  Seward  and  Chase,  had  been  his  competitors  for  the  nomination,  and 
the  new  administration  devoted  itself  to  the  work  of  saving  the  Union.  Every 
means  was  tried  to  prevent  the  secession  of  the  border  States,  and  the  Presi- 
dent delayed  until  Fort  Sumter  was  fired  upon  before  he  began  active  measures 
for  the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion  and  called  for  seventy-five  thousand 
volunteers. 

The  great  question,  from  the  start,  was  the  treatment  of  the  negro.  The 
advanced  anti-slavery  men  demanded  decisive  action,  and  could  not  understand 
that  success  depended  absolutely  upon  the  administration  commanding  the 
support  of  the  whole  people.  And  so  Mr.  Lincoln  incurred  the  displeasure 
and  lost  the  confidence  of  some  of  those  who  had  been  his  heartiest  supporters 
by  keeping  the  negro  in  the  background  and  making  the  preservation  of  the 


LIBBY    I'RISON    IN    RICHMOND. 


Union  the  great  end  for  which  he  strove.  'T  am  naturally  anti-slavery,"  said 
he  at  a  later  time.  "  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  nothing  is  wrong.  I  cannot 
remember  the  time  when  I  did  not  so  think  and  feel.  And  yet  I  have  never 
understood  that  the  Presidency  conferred  upon  me  an  unrestricted  right  to  act 
upon  that  judgment  and  feeling.  It  was  in  the  oath  I  took  that  I  would,  to  the 
best  of  my  ability,  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  .  .  .  This  oath  even  forbade  me  practically  to  indulge  my  private 
abstract  judgment  on  the  moral  question  of  slavery."  And,  although  he 
repeatedly  declared  that,  if  he  could  do  so,  he  would  preserve  the  Union  with 
slavery,  he  continued,  "  I  could  not  feel  that,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  I  had 
even  fried  to  preserve  the  Constitution,  if,  to  save  slavery  or  any  minor  matter, 
I  should  permit  the  wreck  of  government,  country,  and  Constitution,  all 
together,"  and  so,  when  it  became  evident  that  the  salvation  of  the  Union 


HIS  POLICY  IN  THE  WAR.  135 

demdnded  the  destruction  of  that  accursed  system,  the  President  was  ready  to 
strike  the  blow,  and  he  found  almost  the  whole  people  ready  to  support  him. 

It  is  true  that  he  could  never  count  upon  the  absolute  loyalty  of  all  those 
who  should  have  been  his  support.  Radical  men  could  not  understand  his  pro- 
gressive conservatism.  When  he  refused,  early  in  the  war,  to  allow  a  self-confi- 
dent general  to  emancipate  negroes,  the  abolitionists  were  shocked  and  o-rieved 
When  he  retained  in  command,  month  after  month,  a  general  whom  he,  far 
better  than  his  critics,  knew  to  be  a  failure,  the  smaller  men  accused  him  of 
lack  of  energy  and  with  trifling.  He  could  not  silence  them  all  with  the  lesson 
which  he  administered  to  the  members  of  his  cabinet  when  they  protested 
against  replacing  McClellan  in  command  of  the  forces  in  Washington  after  the 
failure  of  his  campaign  upon  the  James,  and  the  crushing  defeat  of  Pope.  He 
showed  them  that  he  saw  all  that  they  did  ;  that  he  knew  the  weakness  of  that 
general  even  better  than  they  ;  nay,  more,  that  in  the  light  of  all  the  facts  the 
reinstatement  was  in  the  nature  of  a  personal  humiliation  to  himself.  But  when 
he  asked  them  to  name  the  man  who  could  better  be  relied  upon  to  reorganize 
the  army,  when  he  offered  freely  to  appoint  the  better  man  if  they  would 
name  him,  they  had  no  nomination  to  make.  He  had  showed  them  anew 
the  difference  between  the  irresponsible  critic  and  the  responsible  head  of 
affairs. 

But  upon  what  Lincoln  called  "the  plain  people,"  the  mass  of  his  country- 
men, he  could  always  depend,  because  he,  more  than  any  other  political  leader 
in  our  history,  understood  them.  Sumner,  matchless  advocate  of  liberty  as  he 
was,  distrusted  the  President,  and  was  desirous  of  getting  the  power  out  of  his 
hands  into  stronger  and  safer  ones.  But  suddenly  the  great  Massachusetts 
Senator  awoke  to  the  fact  that  he  could  not  command  the  support  of  his  own 
constituency,  and  found  it  necessary  to  issue  an  interview  declaring  himself  not- 
an  opponent,  but  a  supporter  of  Lincoln. 

In  the  dark  days  of  1862,  when  the  reverses  of  the  Union  arms  casta  gloom 
over  the  North,  and  European  governmer^ts  were  seriously  considering  the  pro- 
priety of  recognizing  the  Confederacy,  it  seemed  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  his  time 
had  come,  that  the  North  was  prepared  to  support  a  radical  measure,  and  that 
emancipation  would  not  only  weaken  the  South  at  home,  but  would  make  it 
impossible  for  any  European  government  to  take  the  attitude  toward  slavery 
which  would  be  involved  in  recognizing  the  Confederacy.  Action  was  de- 
layed until  a  favorable  moment,  and  after  the  battle  of  Antietam  the  Presi- 
dent called  his  cabinet  together  and  announced  that  he  was  about  to  issue 
the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation.  It  was  a  solemn  moment.  The  President 
had  made  a  vow — "I  promised  my  God,"  were  his  words— that  if  the  tide 
of  invasion  should  be  mercifully  arrested,  he  would  set  the  negro  free.  The 
final  proclamation,   issued  three  months  later,   fitly  closes  with  an  appeal 


136 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


which  indicates  the  devout  spirit  in  which  the  deed  was  done :  "  And  upon 
this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  warranted  by  the  Con- 
stitution upon  military  necessity,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind, 
and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God." 


HIS    GREATNESS    AS    A    STATESMAN. 


But  the  negro  question,  though  a  constant,  underlying  difficulty,  was  by  no 
means  the  whole  of  Lincoln's  problem.     Questions  of   foreign  policy,  of  the 


BIRD  S-EYE    VIEW    OF   ANDERSONVILLE    PRISON. 


conduct  of  the  war,  the  ever  present  necessity  of  providing  money,  which 
flowed  out  of  the  treasury  in  a  thousand  streams  under  the  stress  of  daily 
growing  and  expanding  public  expenditure,  the  jealousy  of  politicians  and  the 
bickerings  of  generals,  all  these,  and  a  thousand  wearing,  perplexing  details, 
filled  his  days  and  nights  with  labor  and  anxiety.  And,  through  it  all,  the  great 
man,  bearing  his  burden  from  day  to  day,  grew  in  the  love  of  his  people  as  they 
came  to  know  him  better.     It  is  of  the  human  side  of  Lincoln  that  we  think 


HIS  GREAT  ABILITIES. 


^Z7 


most,  of  his  homely  speech,  his  kindliness,  of  the  way  he  persisted,  all  through 
the  war,  in  seeing  and  conversing  with  the  thousands  of  all  classes  who 
thronged  the  doors  of  the  White  House,  of  the  tears  that  came  to  his  eyes  at 
each  story  of  distress,  of  his  readiness  to  pardon,  his  unwillingness  to  punish, — 


THE  CAPTURE  OF   BOOTH,  THE  SLAYER  OF  LINCOLN. 


but  this  is  only  part  of  Lincoln.  His  grasp  of  questions  of  State  policy  was 
superior  to  that  of  any  of  his  advisers.  The  important  dispatch  to  our  minister 
to  England  in  May,  1861,  outlining  the  course  to  be  pursued  toward  that 
power,  has  been  published  in  its  original  draft,  showing  the  work  of  the  Secre- 


J. 8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

tary  of  State  and  the  President's  alterations.  Of  this  publication  the  editor  of 
the  North  Atnerican  Review  says:  "  Many  military  men,  who  have  had  access 
to  Mr,  Lincoln's  papers,  have  classed  him  as  the  best  general  of  the  war.  This 
paper  will  go  far  toward  establishing  his  reputation  as  its  ablest  diplomatist." 
It  would  be  impossible  for  any  intelligent  person  to  study  the  paper  thus 
published,  the  omissions,  the  alterations,  the  substitutions,  without  acknowledg- 
ing that  they  were  the  work  of  a  master  mind,  and  that  the  raw  backwoodsman, 
not  three  months  in  office,  was  the  peer  of  any  statesman  with  whom  he  might 
find  it  necessary  to  cope.  He  was  entirely  willing  to  grant  to  his  secretaries 
and  to  his  generals  the  greatest  liberty  of  action  ;  he  was  ready  to  listen  to 
any  one,  and  to  accept  advice  even  from  hostile  critics  ;  and  this  readiness  made 
them  think,  sometimes,  that  he  had  little  mind  of  his  own,  and  brought  upon 
him  the  charge  of  weakness  ;  but,  as  the  facts  have  become  more  fully  known, 
it  has  grown  more  and  more  evident  that  he  was  not  only  the  "  best  general " 
and  the  "ablest  diplomatist,"  but  the  greatest  man  among  all  the  great  men 
whom  that  era  of  trial  brought  to  the  rescue  of  our  country. 

And  when  the  end  came,  after  four  years  of  conflict,  when  the  triumph 
seemed  complete  and  the  work  of  saving  the  Union  appeared  to  be  accomplished, 
it  needed  only  the  martyr's  crown  to  add  depth  of  pathos  to  our  memory  of 
Lincoln,  and  insure  him  that  fame  which  had  been  prophesied  for  him,  should  he 
make  himself  the  "  emancipator,  the  liberator.  That  is  a  fame  worth  living  for  ; 
ay,  more,  that  is  a  fame  worth  dying  for,  though  that  death  led  through  the  blood 
of  Gethsemane  and  the  agony  of  the  accursed  tree.  That  is  a  fame  which  has 
glory  and  honor  and  immortality,  and  eternal  life." 

The  story  of  the  end  need  hardly  be  told.  On  the  evening  of  April  14, 
1865,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  shot  by  a  half-crazed  sympathizer  with  the  South, 
John  Wilkes  Booth.  The  President  had  gone,  by  special  invitation,  to  witness 
a  play  at  Ford's  Theatre,  and  the  assassin  had  no  difficulty  in  gaining  entrance 
to  the  box,  committing  the  dreadful  deed,  and  leaping  to  the  stage  to  make  his 
escape.  The  story  of  his  pursuit  and  death  while  resisting  arrest  is  familiar  to 
us  all.  Mr.  Lincoln  lingered  till  the  morning,  when  the  little  group  of  friends 
and  relatives,  with  members  of  the  cabinet,  stood  with  breaking  hearts  about  the 
death-bed. 

Sorrow  more  deep  and  universal  cannot  be  imagined  than  enveloped  our 
land  on  that  15th  of  April.  Throughout  the  country  every  household  felt  the 
loss  as  of  one  of  themselves.  The  honored  remains  lay  for  a  few  days  in  state 
at  Washington,  and  then  began  the  funeral  journey,  taking  in  backward  course 
almost  the  route  which  had  been  followed  four  years  before,  when  the  newly 
elected  President  came  to  assume  his  burdens  and  to  lay  down  his  life.  Such  a 
pilgrimage  of  sorrow  had  never  been  witnessed  by  our  people.  It  was  followed 
by  the  sympathy  gf  the  whole  world  until  the  love4  remains  were  laid  in  the 


APPEARANCE  AND  CHARACTER.  13^ 

tomb  at  Springfield.      Over  the  door  of  the  State  House,  in  the  city  of  his  home, 
where  his  old  neighbors  took  their  last  farewell,  were  the  lines  : — 

"  He  left  us  borne  up  by  our  prayers  ; 
He  returns  embalmed  in  our  tears." 

"Cities  and  States,"  said  the  great  Beecher,  "are  his  pall-bearers,  and  the 
cannon  speaks  the  hours  with  solemn  progression.  Dead,  dead,  dead,  he  yet 
speaketh.  Is  Washington  dead  ?  Is  Hampden  dead  !  Is  any  man,  that  ever 
was  fit  to  live,  dead  ?  Disenthralled  of  flesh,  risen  to  the  unobstructed  sphere 
where  passion  never  comes,  he  begins  his  illimitable  work.  His  life  is  now 
grafted  upon  the  infinite,  and  will  be  fruitful  as  no  earthly  life  can  be.  Pass  on, 
thou  hast  overcome.  Ye  people,  behold  the  martyr  whose  blood,  as  so  many 
articulate  words,  pleads  for  fidelity,  for  law,  for  liberty." 

TRAITS    OF    HIS    CHARACTER. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  in  every  way  a  remarkable  man.      Towering  above 
his  fellows,  six  foot  four  inches  in  height,  his  gaunt  figure,  somewhat  stooping, 
would  of  itself  attract  attention.      Possessed  of  gricrantic  strengrth,  he  was  diffi- 
dent  and  modest  in  the  extreme.     The  habits  of  youth,  and  a  natural  indifference 
to  such  things,  made  him  through  life  careless  of  dress.      When  he  came  upon 
the  stage  at  Cooper  Institute,  in  i860,  he  probably  was  for  the  first  time  discon- 
certed by  his  clothing.      He  had  donned  a  new  suit,  which  seemed  not  to  fit  his 
great   limbs,  and   showed  the  creases  made  by  close  packing  in  a  valise.      He 
imaofined  that  his  audience  noticed  the  contrast  between  his  dress  and   that  of 
William  Cullen  Bryant  and  other  gentlemen  on  the  stage,  and  he  was  well  into 
his  address  before  he  could  forget  it.      The  expression  of  his  face  was  sad  ;  and 
as  the  war  dragged  its  slow  length  along,  that  sadness  deepened.      His  mind  was 
always  tinged  with  a  settled  melancholy,  an   inherited  trait,  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether  he   was   ever  entirely  free  from  the  mental  depression  which  on  two 
occasions  almost  overwhelmed  him.      Notwithstanding  this,  he  was  the  greatest 
inventor  and  gatherer  of  amusing  stories  known  to  our  public  life.      He  used 
these  stories  on  every  occasion,  whether  to  amuse  a  chance  listener,  to  enforce 
a  point  in  a  speech,  or  to  divert  the  mind  of  an  unwelcome  questioner.      Digni- 
fied statesmen  and  ambassadors  were  astounded  when  the  President  interrupted 
their  stilted   talk   with  a  story  of  "a   man   out   in    Sangamon  County."      He 
opened  that  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  at  which  he  announced  his  solemn  purpose 
to    issue    the    Emancipation   Proclamation  by  reading   aloud  a   chapter  from 
Artemus  Ward.      But  the  joke  was  always  for  a  purpose.      He  settled  many  a 
weighty  question,  which  hours  of  argument  could  not  have  done  so  well,  by  the 
keen,  incisive  wit  of  one   of  these  homely  "yarns."     His  great  Secretary  of 
State,  gravely  discussing  questions  of    state  policy,  felt  the  ground  give  way 


140 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


under  his  feet  when  the  President  was  "  reminded "  of  a  story  of  a  negro 
preacher.  He  settled  the  question  of  a  change  of  commanding  generals  by 
remarking  that  it  was  a  "  bad  plan  to  swap  horses  in  the  middle  of  a  stream  ; " 
and  continually  he  lightened  his  labors  and  relieved  his  care  by  the  native  wit 
which  could  fit  to  the  question  of  the  hour,  great  or  small,  a  homely  illustration 
which  exactly  covered  the  ground. 

His  gift  of  expression  was  only  equaled  by  the  clearness  and  firmness  of 
his  grasp  upon  the  truths  which  he  desired  to  convey  ;  and  the  beauty  of  his 
words,  upon  many  occasions,  is  only  matched  by  the  goodness  and  purity  of  the 

soul  from  which  they  sprung. 
His  Gettysburg  speech  will  be 
remembered  as  long  as  the  story 
of  the  battle  for  freedom  shall  be 
told  ;  and  of  his  second  Inaugu- 
ral  it  has  been  said :  "  This  was 
like  a  sacred  poem.  No  Ameri- 
can President  had  ever  spoken 
words  like  these  to  the  American 
people.  America  never  had  a 
President  who  found  such  words 
in  the  depth  of  his  heart."  These 
were  its  closing  words,  and  with 
them  we  may  fitly  close  this  im- 
perfect sketch : — 

"  Fondly  do  we  hope,  fer- 
vently do  we  pray,  that  this 
mighty  scourge  of  war  may 
speedily  pass  away.  Yet  if  God 
wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the 
wealth  piled  by  the  bondman's 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of 
unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk, 
and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another 
drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must 
be  said,  'The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.' 
With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God 
gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind 
up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and  for 
his  widow  and  his  orphan  ;  to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and 
lasting  peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations." 


ANDREW  JOHNSON. 


MAIN  BUILDING  OF  THE  CENTENNIAL  EXPOSITION,  OPENED  P.Y  PRESIDENT  GRANT  IN  1876 


ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

THE  HERO  OK  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

HE  history  of  the  War  for  the  Union  ought  to  forever  set  at 
rest  the  idea  that  the  day  of  heroes  is  past — that  there 
are  no  longer  great  men  to  be  found  in  occasions  of  su- 
preme need.  Never  was  a  great  nation  seemingly  more 
helpless  than  the  United  States  when  Lincoln  was  inaugu- 
rated. Without  army  or  navy,  a  government  honeycombed 
with  treason  and  apparently  falling  to  pieces,  a  weak  and 
nerveless  administration  giving  place  to  one  made  up  of 
new  and  untried  men,  a  people  without  unity  of  mind  or  pur- 
pose, and  not  knowing  whom  to  trust, — this  was  the  situa- 
tion which  loyal  men.faced  with  sinking  hearts.  Yet,  only 
ten  days  later,  when  the  boom  of  guns  in  Charleston  harbor  echoed  over  the 
North,  all  was  changed  as  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  At  the  call  of  the  new 
President  for  aid,  it  seemed  as  though  armed  men  sprang  from  the  ground. 
And  among  them  were  not  only  soldiers,  but  commanders, — the  men  who  were 
needed  to  organize  and  drill  these  hosts,  to  convert  them  into  a  great  army  and 
lead  them  on  to  victory. 

When  the  war  broke  out,  Ulysses  S.  Grant  was  working  for  his  father  and 
brother,  who  carried  on  a  leather  and  saddlery  business  in  Galena,  Illinois.  His 
life  had  been,  up  to  that  time,  a  failure.  Educated  at  West  Point,  he  had  gradu- 
ated with  a  record  not  quite  up  to  the  average  of  his  class,  and  was  distin- 
guished only  as  a  fine  horseman.    He  had,  indeed,  won  credit  and  promotion  in 

143 


T44  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT. 

the  Mexican  War;  but  in  1854  he  resigned  from  the  army,  with  a  record  not 
entirely  blameless,  and  went  with  his  wife  and  two  children  to  her  former  home 
at  St.  Louis.  He  was  absolutely  penniless,  and  without  trade  or  profession. 
His  wife  had  received  from  her  father  a  farm  of  seventy  acres  and  three  slaves. 
To  this  farm  Grant  went  with  his  little  family.  He  worked  hard.  He  raised 
wheat  and  potatoes,  and  cut  up  trees  into  cordwood,  and  tried  to  make  a 
living  selling  the  produce  of  the  farm  in  St  Louis.  In  this  he  was  not  success- 
ful. He  then  tried  auctioneering  and  collecting  bills,  and  made  an  effort  in  the 
real  estate  business.  Finally  he  went  to  Galena,  where  he  entered  his  father's 
store,  his  record  up  to  that  time  being  one  of  vain  struggle,  failure,  and  poverty. 
Such  was  the  man  who  was  suddenly  to  become  the  greatest  of  the  Union  com- 
manders, and  to  be  regarded  by  the  American  people  as  one  of  the  chief  instru- 
ments in  savins:  the  life  of  the  nation. 

But  occasion  does  not  form  a  man's  character  anew  ;  it  simply  calls  out  the 
qualities  which  are  in  him,  perhaps  unknown  or  unperceived.  It  is  not  hard 
now  to  see  in  the  acts  of  Grant's  youth  how  the  boy  was  "  father  of  the  man." 
When  only  twelve  years  old  he  was  one  day  sent  with  a  team  into  the  woods  for 
a  load  of  logs,  which  were  to  be  loaded  on  the  trucks  by  the  lumbermen.  No 
men  were  to  be  found  ;  nevertheless,  by  using  the  strength  of  the  horses,  he 
succeeded  in  loading  the  logs  himself.  When  he  returned,  his  father  asked 
where  the  men  were.  "  I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  care,"  said  the  plucky  boy; 
"  I  got  the  load  without  them." 

In  such  acts  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the  boldness,  the  readiness  of  resource, 
and  especially  the  dogged  determination,  which  afterward  made  him  such  a 
power  in  the  war.  "Wherever  Grant  is,  I  have  noticed  that  things  ??2(9Z^^,"  said 
President  Lincoln.  When,  before  leaving  Missouri  for  the  Mexican  frontier, 
Grant  rode  to  the  home  of  Miss  Julia  Dent,  four  miles  from  where  he  was 
stationed,  to  asl^  her  hand  in  marriage,  he  had  to  cross  a  swollen  stream,  in 
which  his  uniform  was  thoroughly  soaked.  Bound  on  such  an  errand,  most  men 
would  have  turned  back  ;  but  Grant  rode  on,  borrowed  a  dry  suit  from  his 
future  brother-in-law,  and  accomplished  the  business  in  hand.  Well  might  his 
wife  say,  in  her  quaint  fashion,  "  Mr.  Grant  is  a  very  obstinate  man." 

BREAKING    OUT     OF    THE    WAR. 

On  April  1 5,  1 860,  the  telegraph  flashed  over  the  country  President  Lincoln's 
call  for  seventy-five  thousand  volunteers.  That  evening  the  court-house  in 
Galena  was  packed  with  an  excited  crowd,  women  as  well  as  men.  Grant, 
being  known  as  a  West  Pointer,  was  called  upon  to  preside.  This  was  not  the 
kind  of  duty  for  which  he  was  prepared,  but,  he  says,  "  With  much  embarrass- 
ment and  some  prompting,  I  made  out  to  announce  the  object  of  the  meeting." 
Volunteers  were   called   for,   a  company   was  raised   upon    the  spot,   and  the 


CAPTURE  OF  FORT  DONELSON.  145 

officers  voted  for.  Before  the  balloting  began  Grant  declined  the  captaincy, 
but  promised  to  help  all  he  could,  and  to  be  found  in  the  service,  in  some 
position. 

In  August,  1861,  Grant  was  made  a  brigadier-general,  and  put  in  command 
of  the  district  of  Southeast  Missouri,  including  Western  Kentucky  and  Cairo, 
Illinois,  a  point  of  great  importance  at  the  junction  of  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio 
rivers.  His  first  battle  was  at  Belmont,  Missouri,  about  twenty  miles  below 
Cairo,  which  he  won  after  four  hours'  hard  fighting.  After  the  battle  the  Con- 
federates received  reinforcements,  and  there  was  danger  that  Grant's  troops 
would  be  cut  off  from  the  boats  by  which  they  had  come.  The  men  perceived 
the  situation,  and  exclaimed,  "  We  are  surrounded  !  " 

"  Well,"  was  Grant's  characteristic  reply,  "we  must  cut  our  way  out,  then, 
as  we  cut  our  way  in."     And  they  did. 

The  autumn  and  winter  of  1861-62  was  a  time  of  weary  waiting,  which 
severely  tried  the  spirit  of  the  nation,  impatient  for  action.  Attention  waschiefly 
concentrated  upon  the  Potomac,  where  McClellan  was  oreanizine  and  drillino- 
that  splendid  army  which  another  and  a  greater  commander  was  to  lead  to  final 
victory.  While  the  only  response  to  the  people's  urgent  call,  "  On  to  Rich- 
mond !"  was  the  daily  report,  "All  quiet  on  the  Potomac,"  Grant,  an  obscure 
and  almost  unknown  soldier,  was  pushing  forward  against  Forts  Henry  and 
Donelson,  eleven  miles  apart,  on  the  Tennesee  and  the  Cumberland,  near 
where  these  rivers  cross  the  line  dividing  Kentucky  and  Tennesee.  He  had 
obtained  from  his  commander,  Halleck,  a  reluctant  consent  to  his  plan  for 
attacking  these  important  posts  by  a  land  force,  co-operating  at  the  same  time 
with  a  fleet  of  gunboats  under  Commodore  Foote.  It  was  bitter  cold.  Amid 
sleet  and  snow  the  men  pushed  along  the  muddy  roads,  arriving  at  Fort  Henry 
just  as  it  was  captured,  after  a  severe  bombardment,  by  the  gunboats.  Grant 
immediately  turned  his  attention  to  Fort  Donelson,  which  had  been  reinforced 
by  a  large  part  of  the  garrison  which  had  escaped  from  Fort  Henry.  It  was 
held  by  Generals  Buckner,  Floyd,  and  Pillow,  with  20,000  men.  For  three 
days  a  fierce  attack  was  kept  up  ;  and  Buckner,  who  having  been  at  West 
Point  with  Grant,  doubtless  knew  that  he  was  "a  very  obstinate  man,"  sent  on 
the  morning  of  the  fourth  day,  under  a  flag  of  truce,  to  ask  what  terms  of  sur. 
render  would  be  granted.  In  reply  Graint  sent  that  brief,  stern  message  which, 
thrilled  throughout  the  North,  stirring  the  blood  in  every  loyal  heart : — 

"  No  TERMS  BUT  UNCONDITIONAI,  AND  IMMEDIATE)  SURRENDER  CAN  BE  ACCEPTED.  I 
PROPOSE    TO  MOVE   IMMEDIATELY    UPON   YOUR    WORKS." 

I  Buckner   protested   against  the   terms  ;  but  he  wisely  accepted  them,  and 

surrendered  unconditionally.  With  Fort  Donelson  were  surrendered  15,000 
men,  3000  horses,  sixty-five  cannon,  and  a   great   quantity  of  small   arms  and 


DECORATION    DAY. 


DARK  DAYS  OF  1^62-^63 .  147 

military  stores.  It  was  the  first  great  victory  for  the  North,  and  the  whole 
country  was  electrified.  Grant's  reply  to  Buckner  became  a  household  word, 
and  the  people  of  the  North  delighted  to  call  him  "  Unconditional  Surrender 
Grant."  He  was  made  a  major-general,  his  commission  bearing  date  of  Feb- 
ruary 16,  1862,  the  day  of  the  surrender  of  Fort  Donelson. 

THE    BATTLE    OF    SHILOH. 

The  next  great  battle  fought  by  Grant  was  that  of  Shiloh,  in  Mississippi, 

"the  Waterloo  of  the  Western  campaign,"  as  it  has  been  called.  In  this  battle 
Sherman  was  Grant's  chief  lieutenant,  and  the  two  men  tested  each  other's 
qualities  in  the  greatest  trial  to  which  either  had  been  exposed.  The  battle  was 
one  of  the  turning-points  of  the  war.  The  Confederates,  under  Albert  Sidney 
Johnston,  one  of  their  best  generals,  attacked  the  Union  forces  at  Shiloh  Church. 
All  day  Sunday  the  battle  raged.  The  brave  Johnston  was  killed  ;  but  the 
Union  forces  were  driven  back,  and  at  night  their  lines  were  a  mile  in  the  rear 
of  their  position  in  the  morning.  Grant  came  into  his  headquarters  tent  that 
evening,  when,  to  any  but  the  bravest  and  most  sanguine,  the  battle  seemed  lost, 
and  said  :  "  Well,  it  was  tough  work  to-day,  but  we  will  beat  them  out  of  their 
boots  to-morrow."  "When  his  staff  and  the  generals  present  heard  this," 
writes  one  of  his  officers,  "they  were  as  fully  persuaded  of  the  result  of  the 
morrow's  battle  as  when  the  victory  had  actually  been  achieved." 

The  next  day,  after  dreadful  fighting,  the  tide  turned  in  favor  of  the  Union 
forces.  In  the  afternoon.  Grant  himself  led  a  charge  against  the  Confederate 
lines,  under  whi^h  they  broke  and  were  driven  back.  Night  found  the  Union 
army  in  possession  of  the  field,  after  one  of  the  severest  battles  of  the  war. 

"  The  path  to  glory,"  says  a  wise  Frenchman,  "  is  not  a  way  of  flowers." 
After  the  battle  of  Shiloh,  Grant  was  bitterly  assailed  as  a  "  butcher,"  as  "incom- 
petent," and  as  being  a  "  drunkard," — a  charge  which  was  utterly  false.  When 
President  Lincoln  was  told  that  Grant  "drank  too  much  whiskey,"  he  replied, 
with  characteristic  humor,  that  he  wished  he  knew  what  brand  General  Grant 
used,  as  he  would  like  to  send  some  to  the  other  Union  generals.  The  abuse 
of  which  he  was  the  object  did  not  seem  to  trouble  Grant.  The  more  other 
people's  tongues  wagged  about  him,  the  more  he  held  his  own. 

The  winter  of  1862-63,  the  second  year  of  the  war,  was  full  of  gloom  for 
the  North.  The  Confederate  cause  was  farther  advanced  than  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war.  Many  loyal  people  despaired  of  ever  saving  the  Union.  Although 
President  Lincoln  himself  never  lost  faith  in  the  final  triumph  of  the  national 
cause,  the  cabinet  and  Congress  were  uneasy  and  anxious.  The  fall  elections 
went  against  the  party  which  advocated  the  carrying  on  of  the  war.  Voluntary 
enlistments  had  ceased,  and  it  became  necessary  to  resort  to  the  draft.  Unless 
a  great  success  came  to  restore  the  spirit  of  the  North,  it  seemed  probable  that 

9S&D 


148  ULYSSES  S.   GRANT. 

the  draft  would  be  resisted,  that  men  would  begin  to  desert,  and  that  the  power 
to  capture  and  punish  deserters  would  be  lost.  In  a  word,  it  seemed  that  a 
great  success  was  absolutely  necessary  to  prevent  the  Union  army  and  the 
Union  cause  from  going  to  pieces.  It  was  Grant's  conviction  that  the  army 
must  at  all  hazards  ''  go  forward  to  a  decisive  victory^ 

THE    VICKSBURG    CAMPAIGN. 

On  a  high  bluff  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Mississippi  river,  which  pursues  a 
winding  course  through  its  fertile  valley,  stood  the  town  of  Vicksburg.  From 
this  point  a  railroad  ran  to  the  eastward,  and  from  the  opposite  shore  another 
ran  westward  through  the  rich,  level  country  of  Louisiana.  The  town  was 
strongly  fortified,  and  from  its  elevation  it  commanded  the  river  in  both  directions. 
So  long  as  it  was  held  by  the  Confederate  armies,  the  Mississippi  could  not  be 
opened  to  navigation  ;  and  the  line  of  railroad  running  east  and  west  kept  com- 
munication open  between  the  western  and  eastern  parts  of  the  Confederacy. 
How  to  capture  Vicksburg  was  a  great  problem  ;  but  it  was  one  which  General 
Grant  determined  should  be  solved. 

For  eight  months  Grant  worked  at  this  problem.  He  formed  plan  after 
plan,  only  to  be  forced  to  give  them  up.  Sherman  made  a  direct  attack  at  the 
only  place  where  it  was  practicable  to  make  a  landing,  and  failed.  Weeks  were 
spent  in  cutting  a  canal  across  the  neck  of  a  peninsula  formed  by  a  great  bend 
in  the  river  opposite  Vicksburg,  so  as  to  bring  the  gunboats  through  without 
undergoing  the  fire  of  the  batteries  ;  but  a  flood  destroyed  the  work.  Mean- 
while great  numbers  of  the  troops  were  ill  with  malaria  or  other  diseases,  and 
many  died.  There  was  much  clamor  at  Washington  to  have  Grant  removed, 
but  the  President  refused.  He  had  faith  in  Grant,  and  determined  to  give  him 
time  to  work  out  the  great  problem, — how  to  get  below  and  in  the  rear  of  Vicks- 
burg, on  the  Mississippi  river. 

This  was  at  last  accomplished.  On  a  dark  night  the  gunboats  were  suc- 
cessfully run  past  the  batteries,  although  every  one  of  them  was  more  or  less 
damaged  by  the  guns.  The  troops  were  marched  across  the  peninsula,  and 
then  taken  over  the  river ;  and  on  April  30th  his  whole  force  was  landed  on  the 
Mississippi  side,  on  high  ground,  and  at  a  point  where  he  could  reach  the  enemy. 

The  railroad  running  east  from  Vicksburg  connected  it  with  Jackson,  the 
State  capital,  which  was  an  important  railway  centre,  and  from  which  Vicksburg 
was  supplied.  Grant  made  his  movements  with  great  rapidity.  He  fought  in 
quick  succession  a  series  of  battles  by  which  Jackson  and  several  other  towns 
were  captured ;  then,  turning  westward,  he  attacked  the  forces  of  Pemberton, 
drove  him  back  into  Vicksburg,  cut  off  his  supplies  and  laid  siege  to  the  place. 

The  eyes  of  the  whole  nation  were  now  centred  on  Vicksburg.  Over  two 
hundred  guns  were  brought  to  bear  upon  the  place,  besides  the  batteries  of  the 


SURRENDER  OF  VICKSBURG.  149 

g-unboats.  In  default  of  mortars,  guns  were  improvised  by  boring  out  tough 
logs,  strongly  bound  with  iron  bands,  which  did  good  service.  The  people  of 
Vicksburg  lived  in  cellars  and  caves  to  escape  the  shot  and  shell.  Food  of  all 
kinds  became  very  scarce  ;  flour  was  sold  at  five  dollars  a  pound,  molasses  at 
twelve  dollars  a  gallon.  The  endurance  and  devotion  of  the  inhabitants  were 
wonderful.  But  the  siege  was  so  rigidly  and  relentlessly  maintained  that  there 
could  be  but  one  end.  On  July  3d,  at  ten  o'clock,  flags  of  truce  were  displayed 
on  the  works,  and  General  Pemberton  sent  a  message  to  Grant  asking  for  an 
armistice,  and  proposing  that  commissioners  be  appointed  to  arrange  terms  ot 
capitulation. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  Grant  and  Pemberton  met  under  an  oak 
between  the  lines  of  the  two  armies  and  arranged  the  terms  of  surrender.  It 
took  three  hours  for  the  Confederate  army  to  march  out  and  stack  their  arms. 
There  were  surrendered  31,000  men,  250  cannon,  and  a  great  quantity  of  arms 
and  munitions  of  war.  But  the  moral  advantage  to  the  Union  cause  was  far 
beyond  any  material  gain.  The  fall  of  Vicksburg  carried  with  it  Port  Hudson, 
a  few  miles  below,  which  surrendered  to  Banks  a  few  days  later,  and  at  last  the 
great  river  was  open  from  St.  Louis  to  the  sea. 

The  news  of  this  great  victory  came  to  the  North  on  the  same  day  with  that 
of  Gettysburg,  July  4,  1863.  The  rejoicing  over  the  great  triumph  is  indescri- 
bable. A  heavy  load  was  lifted  from  the  minds  of  the  President  and  cabinet. 
The  North  took  heart,  and  resolved  again  to  prosecute  the  war  with  energy. 
The  name  of  Grant  was  on  every  tongue.  It  was  everywhere  felt  that  he  was 
the  foremost  man  of  the  campaign.  He  was  at  once  made  a  major-general  in 
the  regular  army,  and  a  gold  medal  was  awarded  him  by  Congress. 

Early  in  .September,  1863,  General  Grant  paid  a  visit  to  General  Banks,  in 
New  Orleans,  and  while  there  had  a  narrow  escape  from  death.  Riding  one  day 
in  the  suburbs,  his  horse  took  fright  at  a  locomotive,  and  came  in  collision  with  a 
carriage,  throwing  himself  down  and  falling  on  his  rider.  From  this  severe  fall 
Grant  was  confined  to  his  bed  for  several  weeks.  On  his  return  to  Vicksburg, 
he  was  allowed  but  a  brief  period  to  rest  and  recover  from  his  accident.  He  was 
invested  with  the  command  of  the  consolidated  Departments  of  the  South  and 
West,  as  the  Military  Division  of  the  Mississippi,  and  at  once  moved  to  Eastern 
Tennessee. 

LOOKOUT    MOUNTAIN    AND    MISSIONARY    RIDGE. 

The  town  of  Chattanooga,  an  important  railway  centre,  lies  in  the  beauti- 
ful valley  of  the  Tennessee  river,  near  where  it  crosses  the  line  into  Alabama. 
Directly  south  the  front  of  Lookout  Mountain  rises  abruptly  to  a  height  of  two 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea  level,  affording  a  magnificent  view  which  extends 
into  six  different  States,  and  of  the  Tennessee  river  for  thirty  miles  of  its  wind- 
ing course.     Two  miles  to  the  east,  running  from  north  to  south,  is  the  crest  of 


I50 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT. 


Missionary  Ridge,  five  hundred  feet  high, — the  site  of  schools  and  churches 
established  long  ago  by  Catholic  missionaries  among  the  Cherokee  Indians. 
Both  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge  were  occupied  by  the  army  of 
General  Bragg,  and  his  commanding  position,  strengthened  by  fortifications, 
was  considered  impregnable. 

The  disastrous  battle  of  Chickamauga,  in  September,  1863,  had  left  the 
Union  armies  in  East  Tennessee  in  a  perilous  situation.  General  Thomas,  in 
Chattanooga,  was  hemmed  in  by  the  Confederate  forces,  and  his  men  and  horses 
were  almost  starving.  The  army  was  on  quarter  rations.  Ammunition  was 
almost  exhausted,  and  the  troops  were  short  of  clothing.  Thousands  of  army 
mules,  worn  out  and  starved,  lay  dead  along  the  miry  roads.     Chattanooga, 


UNITED    STATES    MINT,    NEW    ORLEANS. 


occupied  by  the  Union  army,  was  too  strongly  fortified  for  Bragg  to  take  it  by 
storm,  but  every  day  shells  from  his  batteries  upon  the  heights  were  thrown 
into  the  town.  This  was  the  situation  when  Grant,  stiff  and  sore  from  his 
accident,  arrived  at  Nashville,  on  his  way  to  direct  the  campaign  in  East  Ten- 
nessee. 

"  Hold  Chattanooga  at  all  hazards.  I  will  be  there  as  soon  as  possible,"  he 
telegraphed  from  Nashville  to  General  Thomas.  "  We  will  hold  the  town  until 
we  starve,"  was  the  brave  reply. 

Grant's  movements  were  rapid  and  decisive.  He  ordered  the  troops  con- 
centrated at  Chattanooga  ;  he  fought  a  battle  at  Wauhatchie,  in  Lookout  Valley, 


COMAfANDER   OF  ALL    THE  ARMIES.  151 

which  broke  Bragg's  hold  on  the  river  below  Chattanooga  and  shortened  the 
Union  line  of  supplies ;  and  by  his  prompt  and  vigorous  preparation  for  effec- 
tive action  he  soon  had  his  troops  lifted  out  of  the  demoralized  condition  in 
which  they  had  sunk  after  the  defeat  of  Chickamauga.  One  month  after  his 
arrival  were  fought  the  memorable  battles  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary 
Ridge,  by  which  the  Confederate  troops  were  driven  out  of  Tennessee,  their 
hold  on  the  country  broken  up,  and  a  large  number  of  prisoners  and  o-uns 
captured.  Nothing  in  the  history  of  war  is  more  inspiring  than  the  impetuous 
bravery  with  which  the  Union  troops  fought  their  way  up  the  steep  mountain 
sides,  bristling  with  cannon,  and  drove  the  Confederate  troops  out  of  their  works 
at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  An  officer  of  General  Bragg's  staff  afterward 
declared  that  they  considered  their  position  perfectly  impregnable,  and  that 
when  they  saw  the  Union  troops,  after  capturing  their  rifle-pits  at  the  base, 
coming  up  the  craggy  mountain  toward  their  headquarters,  they  could  scarcely 
credit  their  eyes,  and  thought  that  every  man  of  them  must  be  drunk.  History 
has  no  parallel  for  sublimity  and  picturesqueness  of  effect,  while  the  conse- 
quences, which  were  the  division  of  the  Confederacy  in  the  East,  were  inesti- 
mable. 

After  Grant's  success  in  Tennessee,  the  popular  demand  that  he  should  be 
put  at  the  head  of  all  the  armies  became  irresistible.  In  Virginia  the  magnifi- 
cent Army  of  the  Potomac,  after  two  years  of  fighting,  had  been  barely  able  to 
turn  back  from  the  North  the  tide  of  Confederate  invasion,  and  was  apparently 
as  far  as  ever  from  capturing  Richmond.  In  the  West,  on  the  other  hand, 
Grant's  campaigns  had  won  victory  after  victory,  had  driven  the  opposing  forces 
out  of  Missouri,  Arkansas,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee,  had  taken  Vicksburg, 
opened  up  the  Mississippi,  and  divided  the  Confederacy  in  both  the  West  and 
the  East.  In  response  to  the  call  for  Grant,  Congress  revived  the  grade  of 
lieutenant-general,  which  had  been  held  by  only  one  commander,  Scott,  since  the 
time  of  Washington  ;  and  the  hero  of  Fort  Donelson,  Vicksburg,  and  Chatta- 
nooga was  nominated  by  the  President,  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  and  placed  in 
command  of  all  the  armies  of  the  nation. 

The  relief  of  President  Lincoln  at  having  such  a  man  in  command  was  very 
great.  "Grant  is  the  first  general  I've  had,"  he  remarked  to  a  friend.  "You 
know  how  it  has  been  with  all  the  rest.  As  soon  as  I  put  a  man  in  command 
of  the  army,  he  would  come  to  me  with  a  plan,  and  about  as  much  as  say, 
'  Now,  I  don't  believe  I  can  do  it,  but  if  you  say  so  I'll  try  it  on,'  and  so  put  the 
responsibility  of  success  or  failure  upon  me.  They  all  wanted  vie  to  be  the 
general.  Now,  it  isn't  so  with  Grant.  He  hasn't  told  me  what  his  plans  are.  I 
don't  know,  and  I  don't  want  to  know.  I  am  glad  to  find  a  man  who  can  go 
ahead  without  me. 

"  When  any  of  the  rest  set  out  on  a  campaign,"  added  the  President,  "they 


152 


ULYSSES  S.    GRANT. 


would  look  over  matters  and  pick  out  some  one  thing  they  were  short  of,  and 
which  they  knew  I  couldn't  give  them,  and  tell  me  they  couldn't  hope  to  win 
unless  they  had  it  ;  and  it  was  most  generally  cavalry.     Now,  when  Grant  took 
hold,  I  was  waiting  to  see  what  his  pet 
impossibility  would  be,  and  I  reckoned 
it  would  be  cavalry,   of  course,  for  we 
hadn't  enough  horses  to  mount  what 
men  we  had.      There 
were  fifteen  thousand 
men    up  near   Harp- 
er's   Ferry,    and    no 
horses    to  put    them 
on.      Well,  the  other 
day   Grant  sends    to 
me  about  those  very 
men,    just    as     I    ex- 


pected ;  but  what  he 

wanted  to  know  was 

whether    he     could 

make     infantry     of 

them  or  disband  them.   He  doesn't 

ask  impossibilities  of  me,  and  he's 

the    first    general    I've    had    that 

didn't." 

With  the  army  thoroughly 
reorganized,  Grant  crossed  the 
Rapidan  on  the  4th  of  May  ;  on 
the  5th  and  6th  crippled  the  prin- 
cipal Confederate  army,  com- 
manded by  Lee,  in  the  terrible 
battles  of  the  Wilderness  ;  flanked 
him  on  the  left ;  fought  at  Spott- 
sylvania  Court  House  on  the  7th,  again  on  the  loth,  and  still  again  on  the  12th 
on  which  last  occasion  he  captured  a  whole  division  of  the  Confederate  army. 
Thus  during  the  summer  of  1864  he  kept  up  an  unceasing  warfare,  ever  pursu- 
ing the  offensive,  and  daily  drawing  nearer  to  the  rebel  capital,  until  at  last  he 
drove  the  enemy  within  the  defenses  of  Richmond. 


MOIST  WEATHER  AT  THE  FRONT. 


THE  VIRGINIA  CAMPAIGN.  153 

Never  was  the  persistent  courage,  the  determined  purpose  which  was  the 
foundation  of  Grant's  character,  more  clearly  brought  out  than  in  the  Viro-inia 
campaign  of  1864  ;  and  never  was  it  more  needed.  Well  did  he  know  that  no 
single  triumph,  however  brilliant,  would  win.  He  saw  plainly  that  nothing  but 
"  hammering  away  "  would  avail.  The  stone  wall  of  the  Confederacy  had  too 
broad  and  firm  a  base  to  be  suddenly  overturned ;  it  had  to  be  slowly  reduced 
to  powder. 

During  the  anxious  days  which  followed  the  battle  of  the  Wilderness,  Frank 
B.  Carpenter,  the  artist,  relates  that  he  asked  President  Lincoln,  "  How  does 
Grant  impress  you  as  compared  with  other  generals  ?  " 

"  The  great  thing  about  him,"  said  the  President,  "  is  cool  persistency  of 
purpose.  He  is  not  easily  excited,  and  he  has  the  grip  of  a  bull-dog.  When 
he  once  gets  his  teeth  in,  nothing  can  shake    him  off.'' 

His  great  opponent,  Lee,  saw  and  felt  that  same  quality.  When,  after 
days  of  indecisive  battle,  the  fighting  in  the  Wilderness  came  to  a  pause,  it  was 
believed  in  the  Confederate  lines  that  the  Union  troops  were  falling  back. 
General  Gordon  said  to  Lee, — 

"  I  think  there  is  no  doubt  that  Grant  is  retreatingf." 

The  Confederate  chief  knew  better.      He  shook  his  head. 

"  You  are  mistaken,"  he  replied  earnestly, — "quite  mistaken.  Grant  is  not 
retreating  ;  he  is  not  a  retreating  nian^ 

Spottsylvania  followed,  then  North  Anna,  Cold  Harbor  and  Chickahominy. 
Then  Grant  changed  his  base  to  the  James  river,  and  attacked  Petersburg. 
Slowly  but  surely  the  Union  lines  closed  in.  "  Falling  back  "  on  the  Union  side 
had  gone  out  of  fashion.  South  or  North,  all  could  see  that  now  a  steady,  re- 
sistless force  was  back  of  the  Union  armies,  pushing  them  ever  on  toward  Rich- 
mond. 

Grant's  losses  In  the  final  campaign  were  heavy,  but  Lee's  slender  resources 
were  wrecked  in  a  much  more  serious  proportion  ;  and  for  the  Confederates  no 
recruiting  was  possible.  Their  dead,  who  lay  so  thickly  beneath  the  fields,  were 
the  children  of  the  soil,  and  there  were  none  to  replace  them.  Sometimes  whole 
families  had  been  destroyed  ;  but  the  survivors  fought  on.  In  the  Confede- 
rate lines  around  Petersburo-  there  was  often  absolute  destitution.  An  ofiicer 
who  was  there  testified,  shortly  after  the  end  of  the  struggle,  that  every  cat  and 
dog  for  miles  around  had  been  caught  and  eaten.  Grant  was  pressing  onward  ; 
Sherman's  march  through  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  had  proved  that  the  stone 
wall  of  the  Confederacy  was  seriously  shattered  ;  Sheridan's  splendid  cavalry 
was  ever  hovering  round  the  last  defenders  of  the  bars  and  stripes.  Grant  saw 
that  all  was  over,  and  on  April  7,  1865,  he  wrote  that  memorable  letter  calling 
upon    Lee  to  surrender,   and  bring  the  war  to  an  end. 

The  Virginia  hamlet  dignified  by  the  name  of  Appomattox  Court  House 


LEE'S  SURRENDER.  155 

comprised,  in  the  spring- of  1865,  five  houses,  the  largest  of  which,  a  brick  dwell- 
ing, was  the  home  of  Wilmer  McLean.  In  front  was  a  pleasant  yard,  smiling 
with  the  sweet  flowers  of  early  spring.  In  this  house,  in  the  afternoon  of  the 
9th  of  April,  General  Lee  and  General  Grant  met  to  arrange  for  the  surrender 
of  Lee's  army,  which  was  in  effect  the  end  of  the  Southern  Confederacy. 
"When  I  had  left  camp  that  morning,"  writes  Grant,  "I  had  not  expected  so 
soon  the  result  that  was  then  taking  place,  and  consequently  was  in  rough  garh. 
I  was  without  a  sword,  as  I  usually  was  when  on  horseback  in  the  field,  and 
wore  a  soldier's  blouse  for  a  coat,  with  shoulder-straps  of  my  rank  to  indicate 
to  the  army  who  I  was.  When  I  went  into  the  house  I  found  General  Lee.  We 
greeted  each  other,  and  after  shaking  hands  took  our  seats. 

"  General  Lee  was  dressed  in  a  full  uniform  which  was  entirely  new,  and 
was  wearing  a  sword  of  considerable  value,  very  likely  the  sword  which  had 
been  presented  by  the  State  of  Virginia  ;  at  all  events,  it  was  an  entirely  differ- 
ent one  from  the  sword  that  would  ordinarily  be  worn  in  the  field.  In  my  rough 
traveling-suit,  the  uniform  of  a  private  with  the  straps  of  a  lieutenant-general, 
I  must  have  contrasted  very  strangely  with  a  man  so  handsomely  dressed,  six 
feet  high,  and  of  faultless  form  ;  but  this  is  not  a  matter  that  I  thought  of  until 
afterward." 

The  terms  of  surrender  allowed  by  Grant  were  most  generous.  Officers 
and  men  were  to  be  paroled.  The  officers  were  allowed  to  retain  their  side- 
arms,  their  baggage,  and  their  horses  ;  and,  with  humane  consideration  for  the 
men  who  had  lost  everything,  the  men  were  allowed  to  keep  tx  eir  horses.  "  I 
took  it,"  says  Grant,  "  that  most  of  the  men  were  small  farmer;.  The  whole 
country  had  been  so  raided  by  the  two  armies  that  it  was  doubtful  whether  they 
would  be  able  to  put  in  a  crop  to  carry  themselves  and  their  families  through 
the  next  winter  without  the  aid  of  the  horses  they  were  then  riding.  The 
United  States  did  not  want  them  ;  and  I  would  therefore  instruct  the  officers 
...  to  let  every  man  .  .  .  who  claimed  to  own  a  horse  or  mule  take  the 
animal  to  his  home.     Lee  remarked  again  that  this  would  have  a  happy  effect." 

Grant  also  supplied  rations  from  his  own  stores  to  Lee's  starving  army. 
For  some  days  they  had  been  living  on  parched  corn.  He  gave  them  forage 
for  their  horses  ;  and  when  the  Union  soldiers  began  firing  a  salute  of  one  hun- 
dred guns  to  celebrate  the  surrender.  Grant  ordered  the  firing  stopped.  "The 
Confederates,"  he  wrote,  "  were  now  our  prisoners,  and  we  did  not  want  to  exult 
over  their  downfall."  Reading  of  such  actions  toward  a  conquered  foe,  it  is  not 
hard  to  understand  why,  twenty  years  later,  the  South  and  the  North  together 
read  with  tears  the  bulletins  from  Grant's  bedside,  and  why  the  soldiers  who 
fought  against  him  joined  at  his  grave  in  the  last  tribute  of  love  and  honor. 

The  rejoicing  throughout  the  NTorth  over  the  surrender  of  Lee's  army  and 
the  restoration  of  the  Union  was  checked  by  the  sudden  blow  of  the  assassin 


156 


UL  YSSES  S.  GRANT. 


of  the  President,  which  changed  that  rejoicing  to  mourning.  The  death  of 
Lincoln  left  Grant  the  foremost  American  in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  In  the 
political  turmoil  which  followed  the  accession  of  Johnson  to  the  Presidency,  and 
in  the  period  of  "reconstruction,"  while  much  of  the  South  was  under  martial 
law,  Grant,  as  head  of  the  army,  necessarily  held  a  prominent  place.  His 
popularity  increased,  and  his  nomination  for  the  Presidency  in  1868  was  a  fore- 
gone conclusion.  In  1872  he  was  re-elected,  this  time  over  Horace  Greeley. 
His   popularity  was   so   general   that  the  opposition  to  him  was  insignificant 


• 


(UCNKRAL    CRANT    AND    1.1    IILIM;    CHANC,    VICEROY    t)F    CHINA. 


At  the  close  of  his  second  term  he  was  succeeded  by  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  who 
was  declared  elected  by  the  famous  Electoral  Commission,  after  the  disputed 
election  of  1876. 

Grant  was  by  nature  and  training  a  soldier,  not  a  civil  administrator ;  and 
while  there  was  much  to  admire  in  his  career  as  President,  there  is  also  much 
that  has  been  severely  criticised.  Accustomed  to  repose  absolute  confidence  in 
his  friends,  he  was  deceived  and  made  use  of  by  adroit  and  unscrupulous  men 


HONORS  FROM  ALL  NATIONS.  157 

against  whom  he  was  powerless  to  defend  himself.     The  unsettled  state  of  the 
country  after  the  civil  war,  the  political  and  race  prejudices  which  disturbed  the 
South,  the  ignorance  and  helplessness  of  the  freedmen,  and  the  denial  of  their 
rights,  all  combined  to  make  the  task  of  government  a  most  difficult  and  delicate 
one.      But  whether  Grant's  civil  career  be  considered  successful  or  not,  it  soon 
became  evident  that  he  had  not  lost  his  hold  on  the  affectionate  admiration  of 
the  people,  and  that  his  fame  abroad  was  as  great  as  at  home.     At  the  close 
of  his  second  term,  in  May,  1877,  he  sailed  from  Philadelphia  for  a  tour  around 
the  world,  which  for  over  two  years  was  made  one  long-continued  ovation,  more 
like  the  triumphal  progress  of  a  great  monarch  than  the  journey  of  a  private  citi- 
zen.     By  all  the  great  nations  of  Europe  and  Asia  he  was  received  with  every 
mark  of  the  highest  honor.    He  was  the  guest  of  emperors,  kings,  and  municipal- 
ities, and  welcomed  with  tokens  of  good  will  equally  by  the  proudest  and  the 
humblest  of  the  people.   Throughout  Europe,  Turkey,  Persia,  India,  China,  and 
Japan  he  journeyed,  and  when  at  last  he  landed  at  San  Francisco,  the  demon- 
stration in  his  honor  surpassed  anything  before  seen  on  the  Pacific  coast.    It  is 
perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  until  their  eyes  were  opened  by  his  reception 
abroad,  the  American  people  did  not  themselves  appreciate  Grant's  real  great- 
ness and  the  extent  of  his  fame. 

grant's  troubles  and  how  he  met  them. 

But  nothing  in  all  his  career  did  so  much  to  fix  Grant  in  the  affection  of  the 
country  as  the  events  of  the  last  year  of  his  life.     After  his  return  from  abroad 
he  had,  at  the  solicitation  of  his  son,  joined  the  firm  of  Ward  &  Fish,  in  New 
York,  and  put  all  his  savings  into  it.      The  business  seemed  to  go  on  prosper- 
ously,— so  prosperously  that  Grant  believed  himself  worth  a  million  dollars.    He 
himself  gave  no  attention  to  the  business,  confiding  entirely  in  the  active  part- 
ners.    A  sudden  and  appalling  exposure  followed  in  May,  1884.   One  morning 
Grant   went   down    to   the  office   in   Wall    Street,  and   found    that  Ward   had 
absconded,  and  that  he  and  his  children  were  utterly  ruined.     Only  a  few  days 
before.  Ward  had  induced  him  to  borrow  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  under 
the  pretence  that  this  sum  would  enable  him  to  discharge  some  pressing  claims 
upon  a  bank  in  which  the  firm  had  large  deposits.     Grant  went  to  W.  H.  Van- 
derbilt  and  asked  for  the  money  as  a  loan.      Vanderbilt  sat  down  and  drew  a 
check  for  it,  and  handed  it  to  his  visitor.   Grant  had  no  idea  that  the  firm  with 
which  his  name   had  been  identified   existed  upon  sheer   roguery.      But  all  the 
papers  were  soon  full  of  the  shameful  story.      The  famous  soldier  saw  but  too 
clearly  that  he  had  been  used  as  a  decoy  by  an  abominable  swindler.      House, 
money,  books,  furniture,  his  swords,  and  other  presents — the  money  of  his  chil- 
dren and  many  of  his  friends— everything  was  gone,  including,  as  he  thought 
his  honor.     It  was  afterward  clearly  seen  that  he  had  no  complicity  whatever  in 


FINISHING  HIS  "MEMOIRS."  i^^ 

the  frauds  committed  by  his  partners, — that  he  was  the  chief  of  the  sufferers,  not 
in  any  way  a  culprit.  The  sympathy  of  the  people  went  out  to  him  ;  once  more 
he  rallied  from  enfeebled  health  and  a  wounded  spirit,  and  he  began  to  believe 
that  in  time  he  might  recover  from  this  disastrous  blow. 

But  another  great  calamity  was  hanging  over  him.  A  few  months  after  the 
failure  of  the  firm,  he  began  to  complain  of  a  pain  in  his  throat.  Gradually  It 
grew  worse ;  and  at  last  the  dread  fact  could  no  longer  be  concealed  that  his 
disease  was  cancer.  He  had  already  begun  to  write  his  "  Memoirs,"  urged  on 
by  the  one  hope  which  now  remained  to  him — the  hope  of  making  some  provi- 
sion for  his  family  in  place  of  that  which  they  had  lost.  But  the  torment  which 
now  visited  him,  day  and  night,  obliged  him  to  stop.  He  could  not  lie  down 
without  bringing  on  fits  of  choking  ;  he  would  sit  for  hours,  as  General  Badeau 
has  said,  *'  propped  up  in  his  chair,  with  his  hands  clasped,  looking  at  the  blank 
wall  before  him,  silent,  contemplating  the  future  ;  not  alarmed,  but  solemn  at  the 
prospect  of  pain  and  disease,  and  only  death  at  the  end." 

Then  there  came  a  change  for  the  better.  The  kindly  messages  which  were 
sent  to  him  from  all  classes  of  his  own  countrymen,  North  and  South,  and  which 
flowed  in  upon  him  from  England — from  the  Queen  herself — greatly  cheered 
and  consoled  him.  Again  he  set  to  work  upon  his  book,  determined  to  finish  it 
before  he  died.  He  was  further  encouraged  by  the  news  that  Congress  had  at 
last  passed  a  bill  placing  him  on  the  retired  list  of  the  army.  His  good  name, 
he  felt,  was  once  more  established.  In  June,  1885,  he  seemed  to  be  a  little 
better  ;  but  the  great  heat  of  the  city  distressed  him,  and  a  villa  on  Mount  Mac- 
gregor,  near  Saratoga,  was  offered  to  him  by  a  friend.  He  knew  that  he  could 
not  live.  But  three  families  were  dependent  upon  him.  If  he  could  complete  his 
"Memoirs,"  half  a  million  dollars  would  be  earned  for  them.  Again  and  again 
he  took  up  pencil  and  paper — for  he  could  no  longer  dictate — and  wrote,  slowly 
and  laboriously,  as  much  as  he  could.  No  murmur  escaped  him.  Great  physi- 
cal prostration,,  accompanied  by  inevitable  mental  depression,  often  assailed  him 
but  he  summoned  all  his  energies,  and  caijie  back  from  the  very  portals  of  the 
grave.  That  his  children  and  grandchildren  should  not  be  left  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  the  world, — this  was  the  solitary  boon  he  craved. 

And  it  was  granted.  He  had  just  time  to  write  the  last  page,  and  then,  on 
the  23d  of  July,  the  end  came  gently  to  him.  With  his  wife  and  family  still 
around  him,  he  passed  away  as  an  over-wearied  child  might  fall  asleep. 

The  body  of  the  great  soldier  was  laid  at  rest  in  Riverside  Park,  New  York 
city,  beside  the  Hudson  river,  after  a  funeral  pageant  such  as  had  never  been 
witnessed  in  America.  The  army,  the  navy,  the  militia,  the  soldiers  of  the 
Southern  army,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  citizens,  from  the  richest  to  the 
poorest,  joined  in  the  solemn  procession,  and  bowed  their  heads  around  the 
tomb  where  his  dust  was  laid.     For   weeks  the  whole  country  had  eagerly 


i6o 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT. 


watched  for  the  news  from  his  bedside.  Only  four  days  before  his  death,  when 
the  darkness  was  closing  in  around  him,  he  had  finished  his  "Memoirs,"  under- 
taken that  his  debts  might  be  paid  and  his  loved  ones  provided  for.  Now,  when 
all  was  over,  and  the  memory  of  all  the  nation  owed  him  came  back,  a  united 
people  gathered  to  render  at  his  grave  their  tributes  of  love  and  gratitude. 

When,  in  1866,  the  bill  to  revive  the  grade  of  "  General  of  the  Army  of 
the  United  States"  was  before  the  House  of  Representatives,  Grant's  friend, 
Henry  C.  Deming  spoke  these  true  and  fitting  words  : — 

"  Time,  it  is  said,  devours  the  proudest  human  memorial.  The  impress  we 
have  made  as  a  nation  may  be  obliterated  ;  our  grandest  achievements,  even 
those  which  we  now  fondly  deem  eternal,  those  which  embellish  the  walls  of  that 
historic  rotunda,  may  all  drop  from  the  memory  of  man  Yet  we  shall  not  all 
perish.  You  may  rest  assured  that  tlwee  American  naines  will  survive  oblivion, 
and  soar  together  immortal :  the  name  of  him  who  founded,  the  name  of  him 
who  disenthralled,  with  the  name  of  him  who  saved  the  republic." 


AN   OLD   INDIAN   FARM-HOUSE. 


HCKETT'S  RETURN  FROM  HIS  FAMOUS  CHARGE 

"General,  my  noble  division  is  swept  away." 


ROBERT  E.  LEE 

the:    ORKAT    COMNIANDER    OK    THE    CONKEDERATE^ 

ARNIIEiS. 


F  ALL  the  men  whose  character  and  ability  were  devel- 
oped  in   the   great  civil  war,  there  was  perhaps  not 
one   in  either  the    Union  or  the  Confederate  army 
whose  greatness   is    more     generally   acknowledged 
than  that  of  Robert  E.  Lee.      His  ability  as  a  soldier 
'     and  his  character  as  a  man  are  alike  appreciated  ;  and 
while  it   is  natural  that  men   of  the  North  should  be 
unable  to   understand   his  taking  up  arms  against  the 
Government,  yet  that  has  not  prevented  their  doing  full 
'*  ■'  '  justice  to  his  greatness.      It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 

'    w  General  Lee  is  recognized  both  North  and  South  as  one  of 

the  greatest  soldiers,  and  one  of  the  ablest  and  purest  men, 
that  America  has  ever  produced. 

Robert  Edward  Lee  was  born  in  Westmoreland  County,  Virginia,  January 
19,  1807.  He  was  the  son  of  the  famous  Revolutionary  general.  "  Light  Horse 
Harry  Lee."  He  was  graduated  at  West  Point  in  1829,  and  won  high  honor 
in  the  Mexican  war.  General  Scott  attributed  the  capture  of  Vera  Cruz  to 
his  skill.  For  three  years  he  was  in  command  at  the  West  Point  Military 
Academy,  where  he  made  great  improvements,  and  did  much  to  raise  its  stand- 
ing and  improve  its  efficiency.  When  John  Brown  made  his  famous  raid  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  in  1859,  ^^^  ^^^  hastily  dispatched  thither  with  a  body  of 
United  States  troops.  When  they  arrived.  Brown  had  entrenched  himself  in 
the  arsenal  engine-house,  which  Lee  attacked,  battered  down  the  door,  captured 
the  raiders,  and  turned  them  over  to  the  civil  authorities. 

At  the  breaking  out  of  the  war  Lee  was  much  in  doubt  as  to  the  right 
course.  He  disapproved  of  secession,  but  was  thoroughly  pervaded  with  the 
idea  of  loyalty  to  his  State, — an  idea  which  was  almost  universal  in  the  South, 
but  incomprehensible  to  the  people  of  the  North.  He  had  great  difficulty  in 
arriving  at  a  decision  ;  but  when  at  last  Virginia  adopted  an  ordinance  of  seces- 
sion he  resigned  his  commission  in  the  United  States  army.     Writing  to  his 

163 


1 64  ROBERT  E.  LEE. 

sister,  he  said,  "  Though  I  recognize  no  necessity  for  this  state  of  things,  and 
would  have  forborne  and  pleaded  to  the  end  for  redress  of  grievances,  yet  in 
my  own  person  I  had  to  meet  the  question  whether  I  should  take  part  against 
my  native  State.  With  all  my  devotion  to  the  Union,  and  the  feeling  of  loyalty 
and  duty  as  an  American  citizen,  I  have  not  been  able  to  make  up  my  mind  to 
raise  my  hand  against  my  relatives,  my  children,  my  home.  I  have,  therefore, 
resigned  my  commission  in  the  army,  and,  save  in  defence  of  my  native  State, 
...    I  hope  I  may  never  be  called  upon  to  draw  my  sword," 

lee's  clear  foresight. 

He  was  quickly  called  upon  to  "defend  his  native  State."  None  real- 
ized better  than  he  that  a  long  and  bloody  war  was  coming,  and  that  Virginia 
would  be  the  chief  battle-ground.  General  Imboden  has  given  an  interesting 
account  of  an  interview  with  Lee  in  May,  1861,  just  after  he  was  put  in  com- 
mand of  the  armies  of  Virgrinia.  General  Imboden  had  orone  to  Richmond  to 
urge  the  sending  of  troops  to  Harper's  Ferry.  "  It  was  Sunday,"  he  writes, 
"  and  I  found  the  General  entirely  alone,  in  a  small  room  on  Bank  street,  near 
the  Capitol.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  met  him,  and  I  am  sure  he  was  the 
handsomest  man  I  had  ever  seen.  His  hair  and  moustache — he  wore  no  beard 
— were  only  slightly  silvered  with  gray,  just  enough  to  harmonize  freely  with 
his  rich,  ruddy  complexion,  a  little  bronzed,  and  to  give  perfect  dignity  to  the 
expression  of  his  grand  and  massive  features.  His  manner  was  grave,  but 
frank  and  cordial.  He  wore  a  simple  undress  military  suit,  without  badge  or 
ornament  of  any  kind,  and  there  was  nothing  in  his  surroundings  to  indicate 
high  military  rank.   .   .   . 

"  I  rose  to  take  my  leave,  when  he  asked  me  to  resume  my  seat,  remarking 
that  he  wished  to  talk  with  me  about  the  condition  of  the  country,  and  the  ter- 
rible storm  which  was  so  soon  to  burst  upon  it  in  all  its  fury.  .  .  .  He  said  he 
desired  to  impress  me  .  .  .  with  the  gravity  and  danger  of  our  situation,  and 
the  Imperative  necessity  for  immediate  and  thorough  preparation  for  defense. 
Growing  warm  and  earnest,  he  said,  '  I  fear  our  people  do  not  yet  realize 
the  magnitude  of  the  struggle  they  have  entered  upon,  nor  its  probable  dura- 
tion, and  the  sacrifices  it  will  impose  upon  them.  The  United  States  Govern- 
ment,' he  said,  '  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  upon  earth.  I  know  the  people 
and  the  government  we  have  to  contend  with.  In  a  little  while  they  will  be  even 
more  united  than  we  are.  Their  resources  are  almost  without  limit.  They 
have  a  thoroughly  organized  government,  commanding  the  respect,  and,  to  some 
extent,  the  fears  of  the  world.  Their  army  is  complete  in  all  its  details  and 
appointments,  and  it  will  be  commanded  by  the  foremost  soldier  of  the  country. 
General  Scott,  whose  devotion  to  the  Union  cause  is  attested  by  his  drawing 
his  sword  against  his  native  State,     They  have  also  a  navy  that  in  a  little  while 


JOS.S;  I) 


1 66 


ROBERT  E.  LEE. 


will  blockade  our  ports  and  cut  us  off  from  all  the  world.  They  have  nearly  all 
the  workshops  and  skilled  artisans  of  the  country,  and  will  draw  upon  the 
resources  of  other  nations  to  supply  any  deficiency  they  may  feel.  And  above 
all,  we  shall  have  to  fight  the  prejudices  of  the  world,  because  of  the  existence 
of  slavery  in  our  country.  Our  enemies  will  have  the  ear  of  other  powers, 
while  we  cannot  be  heard,  and  they  will  be  shrewd  enough  to  make  the  war 
appear  to  be  merely  a  struggle  on  our  part  for  the  maintenance  of  slavery  ;  and 
we  shall  thus  be  without  sympathy,  and  most  certainly  without  material  aid  from 


THE  JAMES  RIVER  AND  COUNTRY  NEAR  RICHMOND. 


Other  powers.  To  meet  all  this  we  have  a  government  to  form,  an  army  to 
raise,  organize  and  equip,  as  best  we  may.  We  are  without  a  treasury,  and 
without  credit.  We  have  no  ships,  few  arms,  and  few  manufacturers.  Our 
people  are  brave  and  enthusiastic,  and  will  be  united  in  defense  of  a  just  cause. 
I  believe  we  can  succeed  in  establishing  our  independence,  if  the  people  can  be 
made  to  comprehend  at  the  outset  that  to  do  so  they  must  endure  a  longer  war 
and  far  greater  privations  than  our  fathers  did  in  the  Revolution  of  1 776.  We 
will  not  succeed  until  the  financial  power  of  the  North  is  completely  broken, 


niS   CLEAR  FORESIGHT.  167 

and  this  can  occur  only  at  the  end  of  a  long  and  bloody  war.  Many  of  our 
people  think  it  will  soon  be  over,  that  perhaps  a  single  campaign  and  one  oreat 
battle  will  end  it.  This  is  a  fatal  error,  and  must  be  corrected,  or  we  are 
doomed.  Above  all,  Virginians  must  prepare  for  the  worst.  Our  country  is  of 
wide  extent  and  great  natural  resources,  but  the  conflict  will  be  mainly  in  Vir- 
ginia. She  will  become  the  Flanders  of  America  before  this  war  is  over,  and 
her  people  must  be  prepared  for  this.  If  they  resolve  at  once  to  dedicate  their 
lives  and  all  they  possess  to  the  cause  of  constitutional  government  and  South- 
ern independence,  and  to  suffer  without  yielding  as  no  other  people  have  been 
called  upon  to  suffer  in  modern  times,  we  shall,  with  the  blessing  of  God,  suc- 
ceed in  the  end  ;  but  when  it  will  all  end  no  man  can  foretell.  I  wish  I  could 
talk  to  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  State  now,  and  impress  them  with 
these  views.' 

"  The  prophetic  forecast  of  General  Lee  became  widely  known,  and  as  sub- 
sequent events  verified  his  judgment,  it  aided  materially  in  giving  him  that  con- 
trol over  the  public  mind  of  the  South  that  enabled  him  often  by  a  simple 
expression  of  his  wishes  to  procure  larger  supplies  and  aid  for  his  army  than  the 
most  stringent  acts  of  Congress  and  merciless  impressment  orders  could  obtain. 
The  people  came  to  regard  him  as  the  only  man  who  could  possibly  carry  us 
through  the  struggle  successfully.  The  love  of  his  troops  for  him  knew  no 
bounds,  because  they  had  implicit  faith  in  his  ability,  and  knew  he  was  a  sym- 
pathizing friend  in  all  their  trials. 

THE    CONFEDERATE    COMMANDER's     DINNER. 

**  The  great  simplicity  of  his  habits  was  another  ground  of  popularity.  He 
fared  no  better  than  his  troops.  Their  rough,  scant  rations  were  his  as  well. 
There  were  times  when  for  weeks  our  army  had  nothing  but  bread  and  meat  to 
live  on,  and  not  enough  of  that.  When  the  two  armies  were  on  the  opposite 
banks  of  the  Rappahannock,  in  the  winter  of  1863-64,  meat  was  sometimes  very 
scarce  in  ours.  Even  the  usual  half-pound  per  diem  ration  could  not  always  be 
issued.  During  one  of  these  periods  of  scarcity,  on  a  very  stormy  day,  several 
corps  and  division  generals  were  at  headquarters,  and  were  waiting  for  the  rain 
to  abate  before  riding  to  their  camps,  when  General  Lee's  negro  cook  announced 
dinner.  The  General  invited  his  visitors  to  dine  with  him.  On  repairing  to  the 
table  a  tray  of  hot  corn-bread,  a  boiled  head  of  cabbage  seasoned  with  a  very 
small  piece  of  bacon,  and  a  bucket  of  water  constituted  the  repast.  The  piece  of 
meat  was  so  small  that  all  politely  declined  taking  any,  expressing  themselves  as 
'very  fond  of  boiled  cabbage  and  corn-bread,'  on  which  they  dined.  Of  course, 
the  General  was  too  polite  to  eat  meat  in  the  presence  of  guests  who  had  de- 
clined it.  But  later  in  the  afternoon,  when  they  had  all  gone,  feeling  very 
hungry,  he  called  his  servant  and  asked  him  to  bring  him  a  piece  of  bread  and 


1 68 


ROBERT  E.  LEE. 


meat.  The  darkey  looked  perplexed  and  embarrassed,  and  after  scratching  his 
head  some  time  said  in  a  deprecating  tone,  '  Lord,  Mas'  Robert,  dat  meat  what 
I  sot  before  you  at  dinner  warn't  ours.  I  had  jest  borrowed  dat  piece  of  mid- 
dlin'  from  one  of  de  couriers  to  season  de  cabbage  in  de  pot,  and  seein'  as  ydu 
was  gwine  to  have  company  at  dinner,  I  put  on  de  dish  wid  de  cabbage  for 
looks.  But  when  I  seed  you  an'  none  of  de  genelmen  toche  it  I  'eluded  you  all 
knowed  it  was  borrowed,  and  so  after  dinner  I  sont  it  back  to  de  boy  what  it 
belong  to.  I's  mighty  sorry,  Mas'  Robert,  I  didn't  know  you  wanted  some,  for 
den  I  would  'a'  tuck  a  piece  off 'n  it  anyhow  'fore  I  sont  it  home.'  '' 

In   the  latter  part  of  1861,  General  Lee  was  sent  to  the  coast  of  South 


LIBBY    i^RISuN    IN    l8ii4,    BKFURE    ITS    REMUVAL   TO    CHICAGO, 


Carolina,  where  he  planned  the  defenses  which  so  long  proved  impregnable  to 
all  attacks  of  the  Union  forces,  and  which  were  held  until  the  northward  march 
of  Sherman's  army  in  1865  compelled  the  evacuation  of  Charleston.  Lee  then 
returned  to  Virginia,  and  in  June,  1862,  he  took  command  of  the  Confederate 
forces  defending  Richmond,  On  June  26th,  he  met  McClellan  at  Mechanicsville 
and  Gaines's  Mill ;  and  then  began  that  long  and  terrible  series  of  battles 
between  his  forces  and  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  which  so  splendidly  displayed 
his  magnificent  abilities  as  a  commander.  In  defensive  warfare  he  was  almost 
invincible.  He  defeated  McClellan  on  the  Peninsula,  Burnside  at  Fredericks- 
burg, and  Hooker  at  Chancellorsville.  Not  until  Grant  took  command  In  1864 
had  a  general  been  found  who  could  successfully  cope  with  Lee ;  and  even 


GETTYSBURG  AND  AFTER.  •  j^^ 

Grant  accomplished  Lee's  final  defeat  not  so  much  by  superior  generalship  as 
by  steadily  taking  advantage  of  his  own  superior  resources. 

After  the  great  conflict  at  Gettysburg,  in  July,  1863,  the  great  resources  of 
the  North,  so  far  superior  to  those  of  the  South,  began  to  tell  against  the 
Confederacy.  It  became  almost  impossible  to  recruit  the  Southern  armies,  or 
to  properly  supply  the  men  who  were  already  in  the  field.  Henceforth  Lee's 
operations  were  confined  to  the  defense  of  Virginia  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  overrate 
the  masterly  ability  with  which  this  was  done,  under  almost  insuperable  diffi- 
culties and  discouragements.  It  was  love  and  devotion  to  their  commander 
which  held  together  the  armies  of  the  Confederacy ;  and  this,  coupled  with  their 
confidence  in  his  skill,  long  made  his  ragged  and  half-starved  soldiers  more 
than  a  match  for  the  superior  armies  of  McClellan  and  Grant.  General  Grant 
perceived  this,  and  saw  that  it  was  really  a  question  of  endurance, — that  the 
Confederacy  could  be  overcome  only  when  the  resources  of  the  South  were  so 
far  exhausted  that  the  war  could  no  longer  be  carried  on  ;  and  it  was  with  this 
idea  in  his  mind  that  he  took  command  of  the  Union  armies  in  1864. 

The  battle  of  the  Wilderness,  on  May  5th,  was  the  beginning  of  the  end. 
Spottsylvania  followed,  and  then  Cold  Harbor,  where  the  frightful  losses  of  the 
Union  armies  gave  terrible  proof  of  Lee's  ability  to  take  swift  advantage  of  the 
least  mistake  of  his  antagonist.  Then  came  the  siege  of  Petersburg,  and  after 
a  spring  and  summer  of  persistent  fighting,  Lee  seemed  as  able  as  ever  to  keep 
the  Union  armies  at  bay.  But,  as  Grant  had  foreseen,  the  struggle  had  told 
heavily  upon  his  resources ;  and  when  the  triumphant  march  of  Sherman  through 
Georgia  had  exposed  the  hopelessly  exhausted  condition  of  the  South,  the  end 
of  the  struggle  was  seen  to  be  approaching. 

The  deprivation  and  poverty  in  Virginia  in  the  last  year  of  the  war  were 
extreme.  The  railroad  communications  of  Richmond  being  often  destroyed  by 
the  Union  cavalry,  it  was  impossible  to  keep  the  city  supplied,  and  many  of  the 
people  were  on  the  verge  of  starvation.  Pea  soup  and  bread  were  the  food  of 
large  numbers.  Confederate  money  had  so  depreciated  that  it  was  often  said 
that  it  took  a  basketful  to  go  to  market.  A  barrel  of  flour  cost  several  hundred 
dollars.     Boots  were  four  and  five  hundred  dollars  a  pair. 

Still  Lee  held  out,  and  in  the  spring  of  1865  maintained  with  persistent 
skill  and  courage  the  hopeless  defense  of  Richmond  ;  but  his  army  was  melting 
away  ;  it  was  impossible  to  supply  them  even  with  food  ;  the  men  themselves 
saw  that  further  conflict  was  a  useless  sacrifice,  and  were  ready  to  accept  the 
result  which  came  at  Appomattox  Court  House  on  April  9,  1865. 

The  universal  affection  and  respect  which  the  people  of  the  South  felt  for 
General  Lee  was,  if  possible,  increased  after  the  close  of  the  war.  The  confis- 
cation of  his  property  had  rendered  him  homeless.  The  people  of  Virginia 
offered  him  homes  almost  without  number,  and  relatives  also  who  lived  in  Eng- 


I  JO 


ROBERT  E.   LEE. 


land  were  desirous  that  he  should  take  up  his  abode  there;  but  General  Lee 
would  not  consent  to  be  separated  from  the  country  he  loved.  He  was  deeply 
attached  to  the  people  of  the  South,  as  they  to  him  ;   and  of  the  many  homes 

offered him,hs  chose 
one  in  Powhatan 
County,  a  small  and 
simple  country  place 
where  he  gathered 
his  wife  and  children 
around  him,  expect- 
ing to  lead  a  retired 
and  quiet  life.  He 
was  also  offered 
many  positions,  in 
which  he  would  re- 
ceive a  liberal  salary 
for  little  or  no  labor 
but  these  his  pride 
would  not  permit 
him  to  accept.  Final- 
ly a  proposition  was 
made  by  the  trustees 
of  Washington  Col- 
lege that  he  should 
become  president  of 
that  institution. This 
offer,  much  to  the 
gratification  of  his 
friends,he  concluded 
to  accept,  believing 
as  he  said,  that  he 
could beof  influence 
and  use  in  that  posi- 
tion. This  expecta- 
tion was  not  disap- 
pointed.TheUniver- 
sity  quickly  became 

one  of  the  most  popular  educational  institutions  of  the  South,  which  was  no 
doubt  largely  in  consequence  of  the  fact  that  he  was  at  the  head  of  it.  The 
number  of  students  increased  ten-fold  within  a  comparatively  short  time  after 
General   Lee  became  its  president.     His  wisdom  and  skill  in  managing  the 


GENERAL  LEE  TO  THE  REAR  !" 


AFFECTION  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 


Ill 


students  of  the  University  was  remarkable.  His  appeal  to  the  higher  sentiments 
of  the  young  men  seemed  never  to  fail  of  a  response.  They  were  ashamed  to 
do  anything  less  than  their  best  when  feeling  that  General  Lee's  eye  was  upon 
them.      He  was  ac- 


customed  to  remind 
themon  entering  the 
college  of  the  loving 
solicitudewith  which 
their  course  would 
be  watched  by  their 
mothers ;  and  this 
appeal  to  their  high- 
est feelings  seldom 
failed  to  have  great 
effectupon  theircon- 
duct  and  character. 
One  conse- 
quence  of  the  filial 
feeline  which  the 
people  of  the  South 
entertained  for  Gen- 
eral Lee  was  that  he 
was  flooded  with  let- 
ters upon  every  con- 
ceivablesubjectjrom 
all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try. At  a  time  when 
he  had  in  chargfe  five 
hundred  youngmen, 
with  a  corps  of 
twenty-five  instruct- 
ors under  him,  he 
was  receiving  daily 
almost  innumerable 
letters  from  old  sol- 
diers, their  widows 
or  children, and  from 

those  who  had  not  even  this  claim  upon  him  ;  many  asking  for  money,  and 
nearly  all  appealing  for  advice  or  assistance  in  some  form.  A  friend  once  said 
to  him,  "You  surely  do  not  feel  obliged  to  answer  all  of  these  letters?" 
"  Indeed  I  do,"  he  replied.      "  Think  of  the  trouble  that  many  of  these  poor 


JL-I 


LEE  AND  THE  FERRYMAN. 


tyl 


kOBERT  E.  LEE. 


people  have  taken  to  write  me.      Why  should   I   not  be  willing  to  take  the 
trouble  to  reply  ?     That  is  all  I  can  give,  and  that  I  give  ungrudgingly." 

In  1867,  ii^  company  with  his  daughter    Mildred,  he  rode  on  horseback  to 

the  Peaks  of  Otter, 


3c  -  -^ 


..UAO 


fifty  miles  from  Lex- 
ington. At  a  ferry 
on  the  route  the 
boatman  chanced  to 
be  an  old  soldier. 
When  the  usual 
charge  was  ten- 
dered, the  rough 
mountaineer's  eyes 
filled  with  tears,  and 
he  shook  his  head, 
saying,  "  I  could  not 
take  pay  from  you, 
Master  Robert ;  I 
have  followed  you 
in  many  a  battle." 

Bitterness  or  re- 
sentment seemed  to 
have  no  place  in 
General  Lee's  na- 
ture. When  the  fate 
of  war  went  against 
him,  he  accepted  its 
result  in  good  faith, 
and  thenceforward 
did  his  best  to  re- 
store good  feeling 
between  the  North 
andthe South.  Even 
toward  men  who  ex- 
hibited the  most  in- 
tense  bitterness 
against  him  he 
seemed  to  have  no  other  feeling  than  kindness  and  orood-will.  This  was 
the  case  even  with  those  who  sought  to  have  him  tried  and  punished  for 
treason.  During  the  war  it  was  noticeable  that  he  never  spoke  of  the  Union 
soldiers  as  "Yankees,"  the  common  expression  in  the  Southern  army.     They 


LEE  AND  THE  UNION  SOLDIER. 


SCENE  AFTER  GETTYSBURG.  T73 

wei'e  always  mentioned  as  ''Federals,"  or  "  the  enemy."  He  regretted  and 
condemned  the  harsh  and  bitter  language  which  characterized  the  Southern 
newspapers.  "  Is  it  any  wonder,"  he  said,  "  that  Northern  journals  should  retort 
as  they  do,  when  those  in  the  South  employ  such  language  against  them?  " 

LEE    AND    THE    UNION    SOLDIER. 

A  touching  story,  illustrating  this  noble  trait  of  General  Lee's  character, 
was  told  years  after  the  war  by  a  Union  veteran  who  was  viewing  the  great 
panorama,  "The  Battle  of  Gettysburg."  He  said,  "I  was  at  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg  myself.  I  had  been  a  most  bitter  anti-South  man,  and  fought  and 
cursed  the  Confederates  desperately.  I  could  see  nothing  good  in  any  of  them. 
The  last  day  of  the  fight  I  was  badly  wounded.  A  ball  shattered  my  left  leg. 
I  lay  on  the  ground  not  far  from  Cemetery  Ridge,  and  as  General  Lee  ordered 
his  retreat,  he  and  his  officers  rode  near  me.  As  they  came  along  I  recognized 
him,  and,  though  faint  from  exposure  and  loss  of  blood,  I  raised  up  my  hands, 
looked  Lee  in  the  face,  and  shouted  as  loud  as  I  could,  '  LIurrah  for  the 
Union  ! '  The  general  heard  me,  looked,  stopped  his  horse,  dismounted,  and 
came  toward  me.  I  confess  that  I  at  first  thought  he  meant  to  kill  me.  But  as 
he  came  up  he  looked  down  at  me  with  such  a  sad  expression  upon  his  face 
that  all  fear  left  me,  and  I  wondered  what  he  was  about.  He  extended  his 
hand  to  me,  and  grasping  mine  firmly  and  looking  right  into  my  eyes,  said, 
'  My  son,  I  hope  you  will  soon  be  well.' 

"If  I  live  a  thousand  years  I  shall  never  forget  the  expression  on  General 
Lee's  face.  There  he  was,  defeated,  retiring  from  a  field  that  had  cost  him  and 
his  cause  almost  their  last  hope,  and  yet  he  stopped  to  say  words  like  those  to 
a  wounded  soldier  of  the  opposition  who  had  taunted  him  as  he  passed  by ! 
As  soon  as  the  general  had  left  me  I  cried  myself  to  sleep  there  upon  the 
bloody  ground." 

The  value  of  General  Lee's  example  In  restoring  good  feeling  between  the 
North  and  South  can  hardly  be  overestimated.  He  was  so  universally  looked 
up  to  by  the  Southern  people  that  his  opinions  and  example  could  not  fail  to 
have  the  greatest  effect.  It  is  no  small  part  of  his  title  to  fame  that  his  great 
influence  should  have  been  used  as  it  was  toward  reuniting  the  country  after 
the  war,  rather  than  in  perpetuating  strife  and  hatred. 

General  Lee's  domestic  life  was  an  almost  ideal  one.  During  his  last  years, 
his  wife  was  an  invalid,  suffering  from  rheumatic  gout,  and  his  devotion  to  her 
was  unfailing.  Her  health  rendered  it  necessary  for  her  to  travel  to  the  medi- 
cinal springs  in  different  parts  of  Virginia,  and  he  used  often  to  precede  her  on 
the  journey,  in  order  to  have  everything  in  readiness  on  her  arrival.  He  con- 
trived an  apparatus  whereby  she  could  be  lowered  into  the  baths  in  her  chair, 
in  order  to  avoid  ascending  and  descending  the  steps.     His  love  for  his  children 


174 


ROBERT  E.   LEE. 


\ 


manifested  itself  in  a  tender  and  delicate  courtesy  which  was  beautiful  to  see 
and  which  was  repaid  on  their  part  by  the  strongest  attachment. 

General  Lee  died  at  Lexington,  Virginia,  October  12,  1870.  After  his 
death  the  name  of  the  college  over  which  he  had  presided  was  changed,  in  his 
honor,  to  "Washington  and  Lee  University,"  and  stands  a  worthy  monument 
of  the  great  soldier,  whose  noble  qualities  were  shown  as  conspicuously  in  peace 
as  in  war.  The  issues  which  divided  our  country  into  hostile  sections  have 
happily  passed  away ;  and  North  and  South  can  join  in  cherishing  his  memory 
and  doing  honor  to  his  spotless  fame. 


W 


MONUMENT  TO  GENERAL  LEE,  AT  RICHMOND,  VIRGINIA. 


THE  FIRST  HERO  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NAVY, 
JOHN  PAUL  JONES. 

The  one  splendid  name 
which  adorns  the  naval  history 
of  America's  strufjMe  f^r  inde- 
pendence  is  that  of  the  canny 
young  Scotchman  and  daring 
fighter,  John  Paul  Jones. 

It  is  not  generally  known 
that  the  oriorinal  name  of  this 
illustrious  patriot  was  John 
Paul,  the  "Jones"  being  as- 
sumed after  his  removal  to 
America.  His  father,  John  Paul, 
Sr.,  was  a  poor  Scotch  gardener 
in  the  service  of  an  Eno-Hsh 
lord  near  Whitehaven.  In  the 
gardener's  cottage,  little  John 
Paul  was  born  on  the  6th  day  of 
July,  1747.  Early  in  life  he  was 
put  to  serve  in  a  store,  but  his 
great  delight  was  to  escape  from 
the  close  shop  and  go  down  to 
the  shore  and  talk  with  the  sea- 
men. It  is  said  that  every  leis- 
ure moment  was  put  to  the 
reading  of  books  of  seafaring 
life,  and  at  the  first  opportunity,  when  thirteen  years  old,  he  went  as  a  sailor  boy 
on  the  FriendsJiip,  a  vessel  bound  to  Virginia  for  a  cargo  of  tobacco. 

The  boy  was  charmed  with  America,  and  on  his  return  o-ave  such  orlowino- 
accounts  of  the  country  that  one  of  his  brothers  left  England  and  settled  in 
Virginia,  where  he  engaged  in  farming.  For  thirteen  years  Jones  served  as  a 
sailor,  and  before  he  was  twenty  years  old  had  so  thoroughly  mastered  navigation 
that  on  one  occasion,  when  the  captain  and  mate  had  both  died  of  fever  in  the 


JOHN  PAUL  JONES. 


1-]^  JOHN  PAUL  JONES. 

middle  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  he  took  command  and  sailed  the  ship  into  port 
without  an  accident.  This  led  to  his  permanent  promotion  as  captain,  in  which 
capacity  he  served  for  several  years,  engaging,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  for  a 
considerable  period  of  his  time  as  the  master  of  a  slave  ship,  and  it  was  this 
service  that  he  abandoned  when  a  young  man  to  become  a  farmer  with  his 
brother  on  the  Rappahannock  River  in  Virginia,  taking  at  that  time  the  name 
of  John  Paul  Jones. 

Young  Jones  was  engaged  in  farming  when  the  Revolutionary  War  broke 
out,  and,  though  he  had  no  military  training,  he  was  commissioned  by  Congress  to 
take  charge  of  a  vessel.  He  stood  No.  i8  on  the  list  of  captains,  but  on  the 
scroll  of  fame  for  those  times,  first — and,  as  has  been  said,  "  there  is  no  second 
John  Paul  Jones." 

In  1778  he  was  sent  with  the  Raitger,  of  eighteen  guns,  to  follow  where 
Wickes  and  Conyngham  had  led.  He  swept  with  his  tiny  craft  up  and  down 
the  Irish  Channel,  entered  his  old  home,  Whitehaven,  and  burned  the  shipping 
at  the  docks,  and  went  to  take  the  lord  for  whom  his  father  had  worked,  but  his 
old  master  had  fled  in  terror.  He  later  captured  off  Carrickfergus  the  British 
war-sloop  Drake,  larger  than  his  own  ship,  and  then  made  his  way  to  Brest  with 
all  his  prizes  in  tow. 

Next  year  he  set  out  on  his  immortal  cruise,  with  a  squadron  of  five  ships. 
His  flagship  was  an  old  merchantman,  the  Duras,  fitted  up  for  fighting  and 
renamed  the  Bon  Homme  Richa7'd,  in  honor  of  Franklin  and  his  "  Poor  Richard's 
Almanac."  She  was  a  clumsy  affair,  armed  with  thirty-two  twelve-pounders  and 
six  old  eighteen-pounders  not  fit  for  use,  and  manned  by  380  men  of  every 
race,  from  New  Englanders  to  Malays.  The  Pallas  was  also  a  merchantman 
transformed  into  a  thirty-two  gun  frigate.  The  Vengeaiice  and  the  Cerf  were 
much  smaller;  quite  insignificant.  The  Alliafice  was  a  new  ship,  built  in 
Massachusetts  for  the  navy,  but  unhappily  commanded  by  a  Frenchman  named 
Landais,  half-fool,  half-knave.  Indeed,  all  the  vessels  save  the  flagship  were 
commanded  by  Frenchmen,  who  were  openly  insubordinate,  refusing  half  the 
time  to  recognize  the  Commodore's  authority,  and  often  leaving  him  to  cruise 
and  fight  alone.  Yet  the  motley  squadron  did  much  execution  along  the  shores 
of  Britain.  It  all  but  captured  the  city  of  Leith,  and  entered  Humber  and 
destroyed  much  shipping. 

But  the  crowning  glory  came  on  September  23,  1779.  On  that  immortal 
date  Jones  espied,  off  Flamborough  Head,  a  fleet  of  forty  British  merchantmen, 
guarded  by  two  frigates,  bound  for  the  Baltic.  At  once  he  gave  chase.  He 
had,  besides  his  own  ship,  only  the  Pallas  and  the  Alliance,  but  they  would  be 
sufficient  to  capture  the  whole  fleet.  But  the  miserable  Landais  refused  to  obey 
the  signal,  and  kept  out  of  the  action.  So  the  fight  began,  two  and  two.  Jones, 
with  the  Bon  Homme  Richard,  attacked  the  Serapis^  Captain   Pearson,  and  the 


JOHN  PAUL  JONES.  177 

Pallas  engaged  the  Countess  of  Scai'borough.  The  Serapis  had  fifty  o-uns  and 
was  much  faster  and  stronger  than  Jones'  ship.  The  Countess  of  Scarborough^ 
on  the  other  hand,  was  much  inferior  to  the  Pallas  and  proved  an  early  victim. 

It  was  growing  dark,  on  a  cloudy  evening,  and  the  sea  was  smooth  as  a 
mill-pond,  when  the  Boti  Homme  Richard  and  the  Serapis  began  their  awful 
duel.  Both  fired  full  broadsides  at  the  same  instant.  Two  of  Jones*  old 
eighteen-pounders  burst,  killing  twelve  men,  and  the  others  were  at  once 
abandoned.  So  all  through  the  fight,  after  that  first  volley,  he  had  only  his 
thirty-two  twelve-pounders  against  the  fifty  guns — twenty  of  them  eighteen- 
pounders,  twenty  nine-pounders,  and  ten  six-pounders — of  the  Serapis.  For  an 
hour  they  fought  and  manoeuvred,  then  came  together  with  a  crash.  An  instant, 
the  firing  ceased.  "Have  you  struck  your  colors?"  demanded  Pearson.  "I 
have  not  yet  begun  to  fight!"  replied  Jones.  Then  with  his  own  hands  Jones 
lashed  the  two  ships  together,  and  inseparably  joined,  their  sides  actually 
touching,  they  battled  on.  Solid  shot  and  canister  swept  through  both  ships 
like  hail,  while  musketmen  on  the  decks  and  in  the  ries^insf  exchanged  storms 
of  bullets.  For  an  hour  and  a  half  the  conflict  raged.  Then  Landais  came  up 
with  the  Alliance  and  began  firing  equally  on  both.  Jones  ordered  him  to  go 
to  the  other  side  of  the  Serapis  and  board,  and  his  answer  was  to  turn  helm  and 
go  out  of  the  fight  altogether.  Now  the  fighting  ships  were  both  afire,  and  both 
leaking  and  sinking.  Most  of  the  guns  were  disabled,  and  three-fourths  of  the 
men  were  killed  or  wounded.  The  gallant  Pearson  stood  almost  alone  on  the 
deck  of  the  doomed  Serapis,  not  one  of  his  men  able  to  fight  longer.  Jones 
was  as  solitary  on  the  Bon  Homme  Richard,  all  his  men  still  able-bodied  being 
at  the  pumps,  striving  to  keep  the  ship  afloat.  With  his  own  hands  he  trained 
a  gun  upon  the  mainmast  and  cut  it  down,  and  then  Pearson  surrendered;  the 
Pallas  and  Alliance  came  up  and  took  off  the  men. 

The  captured  vessel  was  a  splendid  new  frigate,  quite  a  different  ship  from 
the  poor  old  worm-eaten  and  worn-out  Richard.  Captain  Jones  after  the 
surrender  transferred  his  own  seamen  to  the  Serapis,  and  in  a  few  hours  the 
Bon  Homme  Richard  sank  beneath  the  waves,  the  stars  and  strips  floating 
proudly  from  the  masthead,  in  token  of  victory,  while  the  American  Commander 
sailed  away  with  his  triumphant  crew  on  the  splendid  prize,  followed  by  the  other 
ships  of  his  squadron  with  the  prisoners  on  board.  He  anchored  in  a  Dutch 
port  which  itself  was  not  friendly  to  America,  but  his  great  victory  had  struck 
such  terror  to  the  navies  of  the  world  that  neither  the  thirteen  Dutch  frigates  in 
the  harbor  nor  the  twelve  British  ships  outside  would  dare  to  attack  him.  After 
remaining  in  port  long  enough  to  take  on  supplies  and  make  the  necessary 
repairs,  he  sailed  out  of  the  harbor  and  away  to  France. 

This  fight  between  the  Bon  Homme  Richard  and  the  Serapis  was  not  only 
one  of  the  most  desperate  and  deadly  naval  battles  in  history,  but  its  moral  effect 


178  JOHN  PAUL  JONES, 

was  epoch-making.  John  Paul  Jones  was  the  hero  of  the  day,  and  the  Old 
World  showered  honors  upon  him.  Everybody  wished  to  see  the  hero.  At  the 
court  of  the  French  King  he  was  entertained  ;  the  Queen,  lords,  and  ladies 
toasting  and  feting  him,  and  tendering  him  more  receptions  than  it  was  possible 
for  him  .to  attend.  The  French  King  honored  him  with  splendid  presents,  and 
the  citizens  fitted  him  out  with  a  new  ship  called  the  Ariel,  in  which  he  defeated 
the  English  ship  Triumph,  but  the  latter  escaped  before  surrendering.  Before 
Jones  returned  to  the  New  World,  the  American  flag  was  held  as  a  rival  to  that 
of  England  on  the  sea,  and  all  Europe  was  encouraged  to  unite  against  the  latter 
country,  and  force  her  to  accede  to  a  more  just  and  liberal  code  of  international 
maritime  law  than  had  before  prevailed.  In  view  of  this  latter  fact,  the  battle 
between  the  Serapis  and  Bon  Homme  Richard  must  be  ranked  among  the  three 
*r  four  most  important  in  the  naval  history  of  the  world.  It  was  this  battle  that 
inspired  Catharine  of  Russia  to  enunciate  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  neutrals 
in  maritime  affairs;  and  the  tardy  acquiescence  of  England,  eighty  years  later,  in 
that  now  universal  principle,  was  brought  about  by  the  blow  struck  by  John  Paul 
Jones  off  Flamborough  Head. 

On  Captain  Jones'  return  to  America,  Congress  gave  him  a  vote  of  thanks 
and  presented  him  with  a  gold  medal,  "for  the  zeal,  prudence,  and  intrepidity 
with  which  he  had  supported  the  honor  of  the  American  flag."  People  every- 
where crowded  to  see  him,  and  showered  upon  him  their  compliments.  George 
Washington  when  he  met  him  extended  his  hand  with  the  exclamation,  "  Well 
done,  Captain  Jones !  "  The  King  of  France  rewarded  him  with  the  "  Cross  of 
Honor,"  and  Congress  was  completing  a  new  ship  for  him  to  command  when 
the  war  ended. 

In  1788  the  Russian  Government,  then  at  war  with  the  Turks,  offered  him 
the  rank  of  rear-admiral  of  its  fleet.  This  was  a  high  honor,  but  before  accepting 
it  Jones  sought  the  permission  of  America,  saying,  "I  can  never  renounce  the 
glorious  title  of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States."  Our  Government  granted  his 
request,  and  he  went  into  the  service  of  Russia,  in  which  he  served  with 
distinction,  but  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  Russian  officers  ended  in  a  quarrel 
between  Jones  and  some  of  the  native  admirals,  after  which  he  resigned  and 
went  to  France,  where  he  died  on  the  i8th  of  July,  1792,  at  the  age  of  forty-five 
years.  The  Queen  of  France  sent  her  own  physician  to  attend  him  during  his 
last  illness,  and  after  his  death  the  French  people  gave  him  a  public  funeral  and 
buried  him  in  Paris  with  great  honor.  The  spirit  of  Paul  Jones  has  been 
contagious,  and  the  achievements  of  American  seamen,  Bainbridge,  Decatur, 
Stuart,  and  Dewey,  seem  to  fulfill  the  wish  expressed  by  the  French  clergyman 
who  delivered  the  funeral  oration  over  our  dead  hero,  when  he  said:  "May  his 
example  teach  posterity  the  efforts  which  noble  souls  are  capable  of  making 
when  stimulated  by  hatred  of  oppression/' 


OLIVER  H.  PERRY 


THE  HERO  OK  THE  BATTLE  OE  LAKE  ERIE. 


ONG  the  "Giants  of  the  American  Navy"  there  are  few 
more  remarkable  than  the  commander  who  fought  the  sin- 
gular but  glorious  battle  of  Lake  Erie,  in  September,  1813. 
Oliver  Hazard   Perry  was  a    Rhode    Island  boy,  born   in 
1785.      His  mother,   Sarah   Alexander,  was  noted  for  her 
strength  of  character  and  intellect,  and  her  children  were 
trained  with  rare  ability.      She  taught  him  how  and  what 
to  read,  told  him  stories  of  the  deeds  of  her  military  ances- 
'^■w     tors,  and  "  fitted  him  to  command  others  by  teaching  him  early 
to  obey."     After  the  battle  on  Lake  Erie,  when  the  country  was 
ringing  with  Perry's  praises,  some  Rhode  Island  farmers,  who  knew 
his  mother  well,  insisted  that  it  was  "  Mrs.  Perry's  victory." 

Perry  entered  the  navy  as  a  midshipman  when  only  fourteen. 
He  gave  the  details  of  his  profession  the  most  thorough  study,  and  by  incessant 
training  of  his  crews,  and  practicing  his  ships  in  the  various  evolutions,  he 
brought  them  up  to  a  wonderful  degree  of  efficiency.  In  the  years  preceding 
the  War  of  181 2  he  was  in  command  of  the  Newport  flotilla  of  gunboats  ;  and 
he  practiced  sham  fights  by  dividing  his  fleet  into  two  squadrons,  manoeuvering 
them  as  if  in  battle,  and  thus  acquired  the  ability  to  take  advantage  of  critical 
moments  and  situations. 

When  war  against  England  was  at  last  declared.  Perry  applied  repeatedly 
for  a  sea  command,  but,  being  disappointed,  finally  offered  his  services  to  Com- 
modore Chauncey,  on  the  lakes.  There  he  had  to  begin  by  building  his  ships. 
The  shores  of  Lake  Erie  were  a  wilderness.  The  squadron  was  to  be  built 
from  the  trees  standing  in  the  forest.  Traveling  to  Lake  Erie  in  sleighs,  he 
met  there  a  party  of  ship  carpenters  from  Philadelphia,  and  after  months  of  the 
most  incessant  toil,  they  constructed  the  little  fleet  of  nine  vessels  with  which 
Perry  was  to  meet  the  enemy.  He  had  to  create  not  only  his  ships  but  the 
force  to  man  them.  While  the  vessels  were  being  built  he  was  drilling  his  men, 
a  collection  of  some  five  hundred,  many  of  whom  had  never  seen  salt  water. 

179 


i8o  OLIVER  H.   PERRY. 

Five  months  of  his  excellent  training  converted  them  into  thoroughly  drilled 
artillerists. 

While  Perry  was  building  his  ships,  the  English  commander,  Commodore 
Barclay,  was  likewise  building  the  fleet  which  was  to  encounter  them.  By 
August  both  were  ready,  and  after  some  manoeuvering  they  met  in  battle  on 
September  loth,  near  the  western  end  of  the  lake.  The  fight  was  hardly 
begun  when  Perry's  ship,  the  Lawrence,  became  separated  from  the  rest,  and 
was  so  furiously  attacked  by  Barclay's  flag-ship,  the  Detroit,  that  in  a  short  time 
she  was  in  a  sinking  condition.  Leaving  her  in  charge  of  a  lieutenant,  Perry 
embarked  in  a  small  boat,  and  passing  under  his  enemy's  guns,  boarded  the 
Niagara,  where  he  hoisted  his  flag,  and  renewed  the  attack  with  such  vigor 
that  by  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  every  one  of  the  British  vessels  had 
surrendered. 

Few  naval  victories  in  history  are  more  notable  than  that  of  Lake  Erie,  won 
by  the  genius  and  heroism  of  a  young  man  of  only  twenty-seven.  The  letter 
which  he  sent  to  General  Harrison,  commander  of  the  army,  from  the  deck  of 
his  triumphant  ship,  has  become  immortal : — 

We  have  met  the  enemy,  and  they  are  ours, — two  ships,  two  brigs,  one  schooner,  and  one 
sloop.  Yours  with  very  great  respect  and  esteem, 

O. H.  Perry. 

Perry  won  great  honors  by  his  victory.  Congress  voting  him  thanks,  a 
medal,  and  the  rank  of  captain.  He  afterward  took  an  important  part  in 
military  operations  at  Detroit,  in  the  battle  of  the  Thames,  Canada,  and  in 
defense  of  Baltimore.  While  In  command  of  a  squadron  In  the  West  Indies, 
he  was  attacked  by  yellow  fever,  and  died  suddenly  at  Trinidad,  in  August,  18190 


DAVID  G.  FARRAGUT, 

XHE     QREAT     UNION      NAVAL     CONINIANDER. 

None  of  the  naval  heroes  of  the 
great  civil  war  is  better  remembered 
than  David  G.  Farragut.  The 
figure  of  the  brave  admiral,  in  the 
fight  in  Mobile  Bay,  standing  in  the 
rigging  of  the  Hart/o7'd,  with  his 
glass  in  his  hand,  directing  the 
movements  of  the  fleet,  is  one  of 
the  most  familiar  pictures  of  the 
war ;  and  no  braver  man  or  better 
sailor  than  Farragut  ever  took  the 
deck  of  a  vessel. 

The  naval  career  of  Farragut 
began  in  the  War  of  1812,  when  he 
was  a  boy  only  eleven  years  old. 
He  was  in  that  famous  battle  in  the 
harbor  of  Valparaiso  between  the 
Essex  and  the  British  war-vessels 
Phebe  and  Cherub,  when  the  two 
British  vessels  attacked  the  Essex 
while  disabled  by  a  sudden  squall, 
and  after  she  had  taken  refuge  in 
neutral  waters.  The  Essex,  her  sails  blown  away  and  crippled  by  the  storm,  was 
unable  to  change  her  position,  and  lay  helpless  at  the  mercy  of  her  enemies' 
guns.     After  a  bloody  battle  of  two  hours  and  a  half  the  flag  was  lowered. 

In  January,  1862,  the  government  fitted  out  an  expedition  for  the  capture 
of  New  Orleans,  and  put  it  under  Farragut's  command.  His  fleet  comprised 
forty-eight  vessels,  large  and  small,  and  all  of  wood,  as  the  iron-clad  vessels  of 
later  date  were  not  yet  developed.     The  river  was  defended  by  Forts  Jackson 


DAVID   G.    FAKRACiUT. 


II  S&D 


I«I 


i82  DAVID  G.  FARRAGUT. 

and  St.  Philip,  lying  on  opposite  sides  of  the  Mississippi,  about  seventy  miles 
below  the  city ;  and  many  gunboats  and  rams  lay  near  the  forts. 

Before  attempting  to  pass  the  forts,  Farragut  determined  to  bombard  them 
from  his  fleet ;  and  careful  preparations  were  made  on  all  the  vessels.  It  was ' 
a  grand  spectacle  when,  on  the  i6th  of  March,  this  formidable  fleet  at  last 
opened  fire.  The  low  banks  of  the  river  on  both  sides  seemed  lined  with  flame. 
All  day  long  the  earth  trembled  under  the  heavy  explosions,  and  by  night  two 
thousand  shells  had  been  hurled  against  the  forts. 

The  rebels  had  not  been  idle  during  the  delays  of  the  previous  weeks,  but 
had  contrived  and  constructed  every  possible  instrument  of  destruction  and 
defense.  On  the  first  morning  of  the  bombardment  they  set  adrift  a  fire-ship 
made  of  a  huge  flatboat  piled  with  lighted  pitch-pine  cordwood.  The  blazing 
mass,  however,  kept  in  the  middle  of  the  stream,  and  so  passed  the  fleet  with- 
out inflicting  any  damage.  At  night  another  was  sent  adrift.  Small  boats  were 
sent  to  meet  it,  and,  in  spite  of  the  intense  heat,  grappling  irons  were  fastened 
in  it,  and  the  mass  was  towed  to  the  shore  and  left  to  burn  harmlessly  away. 

Having  at  last  made  all  the  preparations  that  he  could  with  the  means 
allowed  him,  and  the  mortar-boats  having  accomplished  all  that  was  in  their 
power  to  do  for  the  present,  the  26th  day  of  April  was  fixed  for  the  passage  of 
the  forts.  The  chain  across  the  channel  had  been  cut  a  few  nights  before.  It 
was  determined  to  start  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  the  evening  before 
Farragut  visited  his  ships  for  a  last  interview  with  the  commanders. 

THE    PASSAGE    OF    THE    FORTS. 

At  length,  at  two  o'clock,  two  lanterns  were  seen  to  rise  slowly  to  the  mizzen 
peak  of  the  Hartford.  The  boatswain's  shrill  call  rung  over  the  water,  and  the 
drums  beat  to  quarters.  The  enemy  was  on  the  lookout,  and  the  vessels  had 
scarcely  got  under  way  when  signal-lights  flashed  along  the  batteries.  Then  a 
belt  of  fire  gleamed  through  the  darkness,  and  the  next  moment  the  heavy  shot 
came  shrieking  over  the  bosom  of  the  stream.  All  eyes  were  now  turned  on 
the  Hartford,  as  she  silently  steamed  on, — the  signal  ''close  action"  blazing 
from  her  rigging.  In  the  meantime  the  mortar-boats  below  opened  fire,  and 
the  hissing  shells,  rising  in  graceful  curves  over  the  advancing  fleet,  dropped 
with  a  thunderous  sound  into  the  forts  above.  In  a  few  minutes  the  advanced 
vessels  opened,  firing  at  the  flashes  from  the  forts.  The  fleet,  with  full  steam 
on,  was  soon  abreast  of  the  forts,  and  its  rapid  broadsides,  mingling  with  the 
deafening  explosions  on  shore,  turned  night  into  fiery  day. 

While  the  bombardment  was  in  progress,  a  fire-raft,  pushed  by  the  ram 
Manassas,  loomed  through  the  smoke,  and  bore  straight  down  on  the  Hartford. 
Farragut  sheered  off  to  avoid  the  collision,  and  in  doing  so  ran  aground,  when 
the  fire-ship  came  full  against  him,    In  a  moment  the  flames  leaped  up  the  rig- 


THE  ATTACK  ON  THE  FORTS. 


183 


ging  and  along  the  sides.  There  was  no  panic  ;  every  man  was  in  his  place, 
and  soon  the  hose  was  manned  and  a  stream  of  water  turned  on  the  flames. 
The  fire  was  at  length  got  under,  and  Farragut  again  moved  forward  at  the 
head  of  his  column. 

And  now  came  down  the  rebel  fleet  of  thirteen  gunboats  and  two  iron-clad 
rams  to  mingle  in  the  combat.  Broadside  to  broadside,  hull  crashino-  ao-ainst 
hull,  it  quickly  became  at  once  a  gladiatorial  combat  of  ships.  The  Varuna, 
Captain  Boggs,  sent  five  of  the  Confederate  vessels  to  the  bottom  one  after 
another,  and  finally  was  herself  sunk.     When  the  sun  rose  through  the  morning 


BAILEY'S  DAM  ON  THE  RED  RIVER. 


mist,  he  looked  down  on  a  scene  never  to  be  forgotten  while  naval  deeds  are 
honored  by  the  nation.  There  lay  the  forts,  with  the  Confederate  flags  still  fly- 
ing. But  their  doom  was  sealed.  And,  there,  too,  driven  ashore,  wrecked,  or 
captured,  where  thirteen  of  the  enemy's  gunboats,  out  of  seventeen  brought 
down  to  assist  the  forts  in  resisting  the  Union  fleet. 

New  Orleans  was  now  at  Farragut's  mercy.  Lovell,  commanding  the 
Confederate  troops  in  the  city,  evacuated  the  place  and  left  it  under  the  control 
of  the  mayor,  Monroe.  Farragut  took  possession  of  the  city,  and  raised  the 
national  flag  on  the  City  Hall,  Mint  and  Custorn  House,  which    were  the 


1 84 


DAVID  G.  FARRAGUT. 


property  of  the  United  States.      He  then  turned  it  over  to  General  Butler, 
and  proceeded  with  his  fleet  up  the  river. 


I 


THE    BATTLE    IN    MOBILE    BAY. 

In  January,  1864,  Farragut  sailed  for  Mobile  Bay.  Morgan  and  Gaines 
were  the  chief  forts  barring  it.  Fort  Morgan  mounted  some  thirty  guns,  and 
Fort  Gaines  twenty-one.  There  were  three  steamers  and  four  rams  inside, 
waiting  to  receive  any  vessels  that  might  succeed  in  passing  the  forts.  Batteries 
lined  the  shore,  and  torpedoes  paved  the  bed  of  the  channel.  On  the  ist  of 
March  also,  before  his  preparations  for  the  attack  were  complete,  he  saw  the 

Confederate  iron-clad  ram  Tennessee 
steam  up  the  channel  and  anchor 
near  the  forts. 

This  complicated  the  situation 
very  much.  The  contest  between 
wooden  vessels  on  one  side,  and  an 
iron-clad  and  strong  forts  on  the 
other,  was  so  unequal  that  it  was 
almost  foolhardy  to  enter  it.  After 
weeks  of  waiting,  however,  the 
Union  iron-clad  Tecumseh  at  last 
arrived,  and  on  August  5,  1864, 
Farragut  proceeded  to  attack  the 
forts. 

The  vessels  were  arranged  two 
by  two,  and  lashed  strongly  to- 
gether. The  fleet,  with  the  Brook- 
lyn ahead,  steamed  slowly  on,  and  at  a  quarter  to  seven  the  Tecumseh 
fired  the  first  gun.  Twenty  minutes  later  the  forts  opened  fire,  when  the 
Brooklyn  replied  with  two  loo-pounder  Parrott  rifles,  and  the  battle  fairly 
commenced. 

Farragut  had  lashed  himself  near  the  maintop  of  the  Hartford,  so  as  to  be 
able  to  overlook  the  whole  scene.  While  watching  with  absorbing  anxiety  the 
progress  of  the  fleet  through  the  tremendous  fire  now  concentrated  upon  it,  sud- 
denly to  his  utter  amazement,  he  saw  the  Brooklyn  stop  and  begin  to  back. 
The  order  to  reverse  engines  passed  down  through  the  whole  fleet,  bringing  it 
to  a  sudden  halt  just  as  it  was  entering  the  fiery  vortex.  "  What  does  this 
mean  ?"  had  hardly  passed  the  lips  of  Farragut,  when  he  heard  the  cry,  "  Tor- 
pedoes !  The  Tecumseh  is  going  down  !  "  Glancing  toward  the  spot  where  she 
lay,  he  saw  only  the  top  of  her  turrets,  which  were  rapidly  sinking  beneath  the 
water.     Right  ahead  were  the  buoys  which  had  turned  the  Brooklyn  back,  indi- 


ADMIRAL  DAVID  D.  PORTER. 


THE  FIGHT  IN  MOBILE  BA  V.  185, 

eating  where  torpedoes  were  supposed  to  be  sunk,  ready  to  lift  his  ship  into  the 
air  as  they  had  the  TecuTusch. 

But    now    Farragut's    sailor  blood  was    up.      "  D the  torpedoes  !  "  he 

shouted  ;  "  go  ahead  ! "  Pointing  between  the  threatening  buoys,  the  order  was 
given  to  move  on,  and  with  the  foam  dashing  from  the  bows  of  his  vessel,  he 
swept  forward,  "determined,"  he  said,  "to  take  the  chances."  Wheeling  to 
the  northwest  as  he  kept  the  channel,  he  brought  his  whole  broadside  to  bear 
on  the  fort  with  tremendous  effect. 

The  other  vessels  following  in  the  wake  of  the  flag-ship  one  after  another 
swept  past  the  batteries,  the  crews  loudly  cheering,  and  were  signaled  by  Far- 
ragut  to  come  to  anchor.  But  the  officers  had  scarcely  commenced  clearino- 
decks,  when  the  Tennessee  was  seen  boldly  standing  out  into  the  bay,  and  steer- 
ing straight  for  the  fleet,  with  the  purpose  of  attacking  it. 

RAMMING    AN    IRONCLAD    RAM. 

It  was  a  thrilling  moment.  There  was  a  fleet  of  frail  wooden  vessels,  at- 
tacked by  a  ram  clad  in  armor  impervious  to  their  guns.  The  moment  Farra- 
gut  discovered  it,  he  signaled  the  vessels  to  run  her  down,  and,  hoisting  his  own 
anchor,  ordered  the  pilot  to  drive  the  Hartfo7'd  full  on  the  iron-clad.  The 
Monongahela,  under  the  command  of  the  intrepid  Strong,  being  near  the  rear 
of  the  line,  was  still  moving  up  the  bay  when  he  saw  the  ram  heading  for  the 
line.  He  instantly  sheered  out,  and,  ordering  on  a  full  head  of  steam,  drove  his 
vessel  with  tremendous  force  straifrht  on  the  iron-clad  structure.  Wheelinof,  he 
again  struck  her,  though  he  had  carried  away  his  own  iron  prow  and  cutwater. 
The  Lackawanna  came  next,  and,  striking  the  ram  while  under  full  headway, 
rolled  her  over  on  her  side.  The  next  moment,  down  came  Farragut  in  the 
Hartford,  but  just  before  the  vessel  struck,  the  ram  sheered,  so  that  the  blow 
was  a  glancing  one,  and  the  former  rasped  along  her  iron-plated  hull  and  fell 
alongside.  Recoiling  for  some  ten  or  twelve  feet,  the  Hartford  poured  in  at 
that  short  distance  a  whole  broadside  of  nine-inch  solid  shot,  hurled  with  charges 
of  thirteen  pounds  of  powder.  The  heavy  metal,  though  sent  with  such  awful 
force,  and  in  such  close  proximity,  made  no  impression,  but  broke  into  fragments 
on  the  mailed  sides  or  dropped  back  into  the  water.  The  shot  and  shell  from 
the  Tennessee,  on  the  other  hand,  went  crashing  through  the  wooden  sides  of 
the  Hartford,  strewing  her  deck  with  the  dead. 

Farragut  now  stood  ofT,  and  began  to  make  a  circuit  in  order  to  comedown 
again,  when  the  Lackawanna,  which  was  driving  the  second  time  on  the  mon- 
ster, by  accident  struck  the  Hartford  a  little  forward  of  the  mizzen-mast,  and  cut 
her  down  to  within  two  feet  of  the  water.  She  was  at  first  thought  to  be  sink- 
ing, and  "  The  Admiral!  the  Admiral!  Save  the  Admiral !"  rang  over  the 
shattered  deck.      But  Farrasfut,  seeing  that  the  vessel  would  still  float,  shouted 


i86 


DAVID   G.   FARRAGUT. 


out  to  put  on  steam,  determined  to  send  her,  crushed  and  broken  as  she  was, 
full  on  the  ram. 

By  this  time  the  monitors  had  crawled  up  and  were  pouring  in  their  heavy 
shot.  The  Chickasaw  got  under  the  stern  and  knocked  away  the  smokestack, 
while  the  Manhattan  sent  one  shot  clean  through  the  vessel,  and  disabled  her 
stern  port  shutter  with  a  shell,  so  that  the  gun  could  not  be  used,  while  a  third 
carried  away  the  steering  gear.  Thus,  with  her  steering-chains  gone,  her  smoke- 
stack shot  away,  many  of  her  port  shutters  jammed,  the  Tennessee  stood  amid 
the  crowding  gunboats  like  a  stag  at  bay  among  the  hounds.  The  Ossipec  was 
driving  toward  her  under  full  headway;  and  a  little  farther  off,  bearing  down  on 
the  same  errand,  were  coming  the  Hartford,  Monongahela   and  Lackawa7tna. 


-% 


ONE  OF  THE  "  MIANTONOMAH'S  "  FOUR  TEN-INCH  BREECH-LOADING  RIFLES. 

The  fate  of  the  iron-clad  was  sealed,  and  her  commander  hoisted  the  white  flag, 
but  not  until  the  Ossipce  was  so  near  that  her  commander  could  not  prevent  a 
collision,  and  his  vessel  rasped  heavily  along  the  iron  sides  of  the  ram.  He  re- 
ceived her  surrender  from  Commander  Johnson — the  admiral,  Buchanan,  having 
been  previously  wounded  in  the  leg.  This  ended  the  morning's  work,  and  at 
ten  minutes  past  ten  Farragut  brought  his  fleet  to  anchor  within  four  mile^  of 
Fort  Morgan. 

The  loss  of  the  Union  iron-clad  Tecumseh,  with  her  commander  and  crew, 
tempered  the  exultation  over  this  splendid  victory.  A  torpedo  was  exploded 
directly  under  the  vessel,  almost  lifting  her  out  of  the  water,  and  blowing  a  hole 
in  her  bottom  so  large  that  she  sank  before  her  crew  could  reach  the  deck. 
Farragut's  impetuous  bravery,  however,  and  the  picturesque  novelty  of  wooden 


ms    WELCOME  IN  NEW  YORK. 


187 


vessels  ramming  an  iron-clad,  made  this  one  of  the  most  famous  naval  battles 
of  the  war,  and  gave  to  the  brave  admiral  a  wide  and  lasting  renown.  Officers 
and  men,  too,  seemed  to  catch  the  spirit  of  the  commander,  and  fought  with  the 
most  splendid  bravery.  Several  of  the  wounded  refused  to  leave  the  deck, 
but  continued  to  fisfht  their  o-uns  ;  others  retired  and  had  their  wounds  dressed 
and  then  returned  to  their  posts. 

A  few  days  later,  after  a  severe  bombardment  from  the  Union  fleet  both 


MONUMENT  TO  ADMIRAL  FARRAGUT,  AT  WASHINGTON. 


the  Confederate  forts  were  surrendered.  This  completed  the  Union  victory 
and  put  the  harbor  and  city  of  Mobile  again  under  the  control  of  the  govern- 
ment. Soon  after  this,  his  health  demanding  some  relaxation,  Farragut  ob- 
tained leave  of  absence,  and  sailed  for  New  York  in  his  flagship,  the  now 
famous  Hartford.  At  New  York  he  was  welcomed  with  impressive  ceremonies, 
and  received  the  highest  testimonials  of  appreciation  of  his  services  to  the 
nation,  a  number  of  wealthy  men  of  New  York  presenting  a  gift  of  ^50,000  as 
a  token  of  their  esteem.      The  rank  of  vice-admiral  was  created  for  him  by 


i88  DAVID   G.   FARRAGUT. 

Congress.    His  services  were  not  again  required  during  the  war,  and  he  returned 
to  his  home  at  Hastings,  on  the  Hudson. 

Farragut  had  just  the  qualities  for  a  popular  hero.  Brave  almost  to  the 
point  of  recklessness,  he  was  simple  and  unassuming  in  appearance  and 
deportment,  and  kind  and  genial  in  manner.  A  story  is  told  of  him  that  once 
when  traveling  in  the  White  Mountains,  a  man  brought  his  little  daughter,  at 
her  own  urgent  request,  some  fifteen  miles  to  see  him,  for  she  would  not  be 
content  till  she  had  looked  on  the  great  admiral.  Farragut  took  the  child  i" 
his  arms,  kissed  her,  and  talked  playfully  with  her.  He  was  dressed  in  citizen's 
costume,  and  looked  in  her  eyes  very  much  like  any  other  man,  and  totally 
unlike  the  hero  whose  praises  had  been  so  long  ringing  over  the  land.  In  her 
innocent  surprise,  she  said,  "  Why,  you  do  not  look  like  a  great  general.  I 
saw  one  the  other  day,  and  he  was  covered  all  over  with  gold."  The  admiral 
laughed,  and,  to  please  her,  actually  took  her  to  his  room,  and  put  on  his  uni- 
form, when  she  went  away  satisfied. 


•A\00EL    OP 

U.S.  AlAN  OP  War 

•BuiLT.fOR-E;(hiBlT'  AT-  WORLDS. FftiK 


JAMES  A.  GARFIELD, 

CITIZKN,     SXATE^SNIAN,     PRESIDENT. 

URING  the  long,  sultry  days  of  the  summer  of  1881,  at 
almost  every  newspaper  and  telegraph  office  stood  a  group 
of  people,  which  sometimes  swelled  into  a  great  crowd, 
watching  eagerly  for  the  slips  of  paper  which  from  time  to 
time  were  posted  in  a  conspicuous  place  on  the  front  of 
the  building.  In  the  intervals  they  would  gather  in  little 
knots  and  talk  together  in  low  tones.  To  one  who  did 
not  know  what  had  happened  on  July  2d,  it  would  have 
been  hard  to  guess  what  gathered  these  waiting  crowds,  day 
after  day,  throughout  the  land.  With  intense,  foreboding 
suspense  fifty  millions  of  people  were  watching  for  the  news  from 
the  bedside  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  who  had  been 
stricken  down  by  the  bullet  of  an  assassin.  Who  that  lived  through  that  long 
summer  can  forget  those  anxious  days  and  nights?  And  when  at  last  the  brave 
struggle  for  life  was  ended,  and  the  silent  form  was  borne  from  the  seaside  to 
rest  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Erie,  who  can  forofet  the  solemn  hush  which  seemed 
to  prevail  everywhere  as  the  tomb  opened  to  receive  all  that  was  mortal  of  the 
beloved  President,  James  A.  Garfield  ? 

To  some  not  well  acquainted  with  Garfield's  history,  it  may  seem  that  the 
tragic  and  pathetic  circumstances  of  his  illness  and  death  were  the  chief  cause 
of  the  universal  love  and  grief  which  were  manifested  for  him  ;  but  a  study  of 
his  life  will  correct  this  impression.  Few  public  men  of  our  time  have  had  a 
career  which  was  so  gradual  and  steady  a  growth  ;  and  few  indeed  attain  to  the 
full,  ripe,  well-rounded  completeness  which  made  him  a  really  great  statesman. 
Steadily,  inch  by  inch,  he  had  worked  his  way  up,  never  falling  back,  until  the 
topmost  round  of  the  ladder  was  reached  ;  and  never  was  success  more  fully 
deserved  or  more  bravely  won. 

James  Abram  Garfield  was  born  in  Cuyahoga  county,  Ohio,  on  November 
19,  1831.  He  was  but  two  years  old  when  his  father  died  suddenly,  leaving 
his  mother  with  four  children,  and  her  only  source  of  support  a  small  farm, 
encumbered  by  debt,  in  the  half-cleared  forests  of  northern  Ohio.     She  worked 

1 89 


I  go 


JAMBS  A.  GARFIELb. 


early  and  late,  the  children  helping  her.  James  had  "  not  a  lazy  bone  in  his 
body."  When  hardly  more  than  a  baby,  he  picked  cherries,  planted  corn, 
gathered  vegetables,  and  helped  in  a  hundred  ways.  He  early  developed  a 
great  aptitude  for  the  use  of  tools,  and  as  he  grew  up  made  an  excellent  car- 
penter. There  was  hardly  a  barn,  shed,  or  building  of  any  kind  put  up  in  the 
neighborhood  but  bore  the  marks  of  his  skill.  The  money  earned  by  the  use 
of  his  tools  in  summer  helped  to  pay  for  his  schooling  in  the  winter. 

James  early  developed  a  great  love  for  books.  Stories  of  battle,  tales  of 
adventure,  the  lives  of  great  men,  all  such  were  irresistibly  fascinating  to  him. 
Two  books,  Weems's  "Life  of  Marion"  and  Grimshaw's  "Napoleon,"  stirred 


II 


\ 


-w^A-i 


r<^  -.^^.o-^-S 


THE    HOME    UF   GARFIELD'S   CHILDHOOD. 


in  him  a  great  desire  for  the  military  career  on  which  he  entered  with  so  much 
promise  in  later  life  ;  and  stories  of  the  sea  at  last  aroused  an  irresistible  long- 
ing for  a  sailor's  life.  He  went  to  Cleveland  and  tried  to  secure  employment 
on  one  of  the  lake  vessels,  but  was  unsuccessful.  The  only  opening  in  the  line 
of  maritime  commerce  was  on  the  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania  canal,  and  James 
accepted  the  position  of  driver,  at  twelve  dollars  a  month.  Such  was  his 
capacity  and  attention  to  duty  that  in  the  first  round  trip  he  had  learned  all 
there  was  to  be  learned  on  the  tow-path.  He  was  promptly  promoted  from 
driver  to  bowsman,  and  accorded  the  proud  privilege  of  steering  the  boat 
instead  of  steering  the  mules. 


LIFE   ON  THE   CANAL. 


191 


During  his  first  trip  he  fell  overboard  fourteen  times,  by  actual  count.  In 
thif.  way  he  contracted  malaria,  which  long  remained  with  him.  He  could  not 
swim  a  stroke.  One  dark,  rainy  night  he  again  fell  into  the  canal,  when  no  help 
was  at  hand,  and  was  saved  as  by  a  miracle,  the  rope  at  which  he  caught  "  kink- 
ing" and  holding  fast  while  he  drew  himself  on  deck.  Believing  that  he  was 
providentially  saved  for  something  better  than  steering  a  canal-boat,  he  returned 
home,  resolved  to  obtain  an  education  and  make  a  man  of  himself. 

EARNING    AN    EDUCATION. 

In  the  winter  of  1849  he  attended  Geauga  Seminary,  where  he  and  three 
other  young  men  "  boarded  themselves,"  living  on  about  fifty  cents  a  week  each. 


GARFIELD  ON  THE  TOW-PATH. 


Here  he  met  a  quiet,  studious  girl,  Lucretia  Rudolph,  the  daughter  of  a  Mary- 
land farmer,  who  afterward  became  his  wife.  He  was  an  intense  student.  He 
had  an  insatiable  appetite  for  knowledge,  and  would  make  any  sacrifice  to 
obtain  it.  At  the  close  of  the  session  he  worked  through  the  vacation,  and 
also  taught  a  country  school,  to  earn  money  for  the  following  winter.  He  was 
a  capital  teacher.  He  stirred  a  new  life  and  ambition  in  his  scholars,  and 
roused  in  them  an  enthusiasm  almost  equal  to  his  own. 

In  August,  1851,  Garfield  entered  a  new  school  established  at  Hiram, 
Portage  county,  by  the  religious  society  to  which  he  belonged,  the  Disciples 
of  Christ,  or  "  Campbellites."  Here  he  resolved  to  prepare  himself  for  college. 
He  lived  in  a  room  with  four  other  pupils,  and  studied  harder  than  ever.   When 


192 


JAMES  A.  GARFIELD. 


he  went  to  Hiram  he  had  studied  Latin  only  six  weeks,  and  just  begun  Greek; 
and  was,  therefore,  just  in  a  condition  to  fairly  begin  the  four  years'  preparatory 
course  ordinarily  taken  by  students  to  enter  college  in  the  freshman  class. 
Yet  in  three  years'  time  he  fitted  himself  to  enter  t\ie.  junior  class,  and  at  the 
same  time  earned  his  own  living,  thus  crowding  six  years'  study  into  three;  and 
teaching  for  support  at  the  same  time.  After  some  debate  he  resolved  to  go  to 
Williams  College,  in  Berkshire,  Massachusetts,  and  entered  there  in  1854. 

Study  at  Williams  was  easy  for  Garfield.  He  had  been  used  to  much 
harder  work  at   Hiram.      His  lessons  were   always  perfectly  learned.      One  of 

the  professors  called  him  "the  boy 
who  never  flunked,"  and  he  did 
much  extra  reading  and  studying. 

In  the  summer  of  1856,  after 
only  two  years  of  study,  Garfield 
graduated  at  Williams  College,  and 
returned  to  his  Ohio  home.  In  the 
autunm  he  entered  Hiram  College 
as  a  teacher  of  ancient  languages 
and  literature.  The  next  year,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-six,  he  was  made 
president  of  the  institution.  This 
office  he  held  for  five  years.  Under 
his  manaofement  the  attendance  was 
doubled  ;  he  raised  the  standard  of 
scholarship,  strengthened  its  faculty* 
and  inspired  everybody  connected 
with  it  with  something  of  his  own 
zeal  and  enthusiasm.  In  1858  he 
married  his  old  schoolmate,  Miss 
Rudolph,  and  they  began  life  in  a  little  cottage  fronting  on  the  grounds  of  the 
college. 

Garfield's  political  career  may  be  said  to  have  fairly  begun  in  the  campaign 
of  1857-58,  when  he  made  a  number  of  political  speeches.  In  1859  he  was 
elected  to  the  State  Senate  of  Ohio,  and  became  a  noted  member  of  that  body. 
When  the  war  broke  out  in  1861,  and  President  Lincoln  issued  his  call  for 
75,000  men,  Garfield  moved  in  the  Ohio  Senate  to  make  20,000  troops  and 
$3,000,000  the  quota  of  the  State.  In  August  Governor  Dennison,  the  famous 
"  war  governor"  of  Ohio,  offered  him  the  lieutenant-colonelcy  of  the  42d  Ohio 
Regiment,  which  was  then  being  organized.  Most  of  the  regiment  were  old 
students  of  Hiram  College,  so  that  he  would  be  surrounded  in  the  field  by  the 
same   faces  among  whom   he   had   taught.      He  soon   decided  to   accept   the 


.i' 


GARFIELD  AT  THE  AGE  OF  SIXTEEN. 


THE  KENTUCKY  CAMPAIGN. 


193 


commission.  His  way  of  proceeding  to  drill  his  company  was  characteristic  of 
the  teacher  as  well  as  the  soldier.  He  made  soldiers  of  wooden  blocks,  fash- 
ioned in  different  forms  to  represent  the  officers,  and  with  these  blocks  he  car- 
ried on  with  his  subordinates  games  of  military  tactics,  until,  when  the  reo-iment 
was  ready  to  go  into  service,  it  was  pronounced  one  of  the  most  thoroughly 
drilled  in  the  whole  army. 

FIGHTING    IN    KENTUCKY. 

In  December  of  1861,  Garfield's  regiment  was  ordered  into  service  in 
Kentucky  and  West  Virginia.  At  that  time  the  destiny  of  Kentucky  was  still 
in  doubt.     Though  much  attached  to  the  Union,  it  was  a  slave  State,  and  strong 


HIRAM  COLLEGE. 


influences  were  at  work  to  draw  it  within  the  vortex  of  secession.  Two  Confed- 
erate armies  were  marching  northward  through  the  State,  one  under  Zolli- 
koffer  and  the  other  under  Humphrey  Marshall.  Garfield  was  dispatched 
against  Marshall's  forces.  He  met  them  on  the  banks  of  Middle  Creek,  a 
narrow  and  rapid  stream,  flowing  into  the  Big  Sandy,  through  the  sharp  spurs 
of  the  Cumberland  Mountains.  His  force  amounted  to  only  1 100  men  ;  they 
met  at  least  5000,  and  defeated  them.  Marshall's  force  was  driven  from 
Kentucky,  and  made  no  further  attempt  to  occupy  the  Sandy  Valley.  This 
campaign  was  conducted  under  the  greatest  possible  difficulties,  and  it  has 
received  the  highest  praise  from  military  critics. 

After  his  success  in  Kentucky,  Garfield  was  sent  with  his  regiment  to  join 


ig4  JAMES  A.  GARFIELD. 

Grant  in  Mississippi.  He  arrived,  with  the  other  forces  under  Buell,  just  in  time 
to  help  in  the  second  day's  battle  at  Shiloh,  and  to  turn  the  tide  in  favor  of  the 
Union  army.  After  this  battle  he  was  for  some  time  employed  in  rebuilding 
railroads  and  bridges.  In  midsummer,  however,  he  was  obliged  to  return  home 
on  sick-leave.  As  soon  as  he  recovered,  he  was  ordered  to  join  General  Rose- 
crans,  then  in  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland.  He  was  made  the 
commander's  chief-of-staff,  and  acted  in  this  position  during  the  following  year. 

On  September  19,  1863,  was  fought  the  great  battle  of  Chickamauga,  which 
but  for  the  bravery  and  steadiness  of  General  Thomas  would  probably  have 
resulted  in  the  destruction  of  the  Union  army.  Rosecrans,  accompanied  by  his 
chief-of-staff,  had  left  the  battle-field,  and  gone  hastily  to  Chattanooga,  to  provide 
for  the  retreat  which  he  then  thought  inevitable.  On  reaching  Chattanooga, 
Garfield,  at  his  urgent  request,  was  permitted  to  return  to  the  battle-field,  where 
he  found  Thomas  still  engaged  in  resisting  the  attack  of  the  Confederate  forces. 
Immediately  after  his  arrival  a  fresh  assault  was  made,  lasting  half  an  hour,  when 
the  Confederates  finally  broke  and  abandoned  the  attack.  Garfield  remained 
on  the  field  with  General  Thomas  until  night,  and  accompanied  him  in  his  retreat 
to  Chattanooga. 

Soon  after  the  battle  of  Chickamauga  Garfield  was  nominated  for  Congress 
from  the  Northern  District  of  Ohio.  Almost  at  the  same  time  he  received  his 
promotion  to  the  grade  of  major-general  for  his  gallant  services  in  the  Chatta- 
nooga campaign.  His  salary  as  major-general  would  be  more  than  double  that 
which  he  would  receive  as  Congressman ;  but  he  was  convinced  that  he  could 
do  the  country  more  service  in  the  latter  position,  and  accordingly  took  his  place 
in  Congress,  vvhere  he  remained  until,  sixteen  years  later,  he  was  nominated  for 
President. 

Garfield's  career  in  Congress  was  one  of  steady  advancement.  At  its 
bep-innincr  he  was  noted  as  an  efficient  and  original  public  man.  He  was 
exceedingly  industrious  and  attentive  to  legislative  business,  and  the  measures 
which  he  originated  and  advocated  in  Congress  gave  him  a  wide  and  lasting 
reputation.  In  his  second  term,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  war,  his  financial 
ability  had  become  so  apparent  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  requested 
the  Speaker  to  make  him  a  member  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee,  that 
the  country  might  have  the  benefit  of  his  ability  and  experience.  Throughout 
his  whole  term  of  service,  his  influence  steadily  increased,  and  when  in  1877  Mr. 
Blaine  was  transferred  from  the  House  to  the  Senate,  Garfield  was  by  common 
consent  made  the  leader  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  House. 

In  1880  Garfield  was  nominated  and  elected  United  States  Senator  by  the 
Ohio  Legislature,  and  on  June  loth  of  the  same  year  he  was  nominated  at 
Chicago  for  the  Presidency. 

The  meeting  of  the  Republican  National  Convention  in  Chicago,  in  June, 


THE  CHICAGO  CONVENTION. 


195 


1880,  was  one  of  the  most  memorable  in  the  history  of  the  party.  The  popu- 
larity of  General  Grant  had  been  immensely  increased  by  the  honors  showered 
upon  him  by  all  nations  in  his  trip  around  the  world,  from  which  he  had  recently 
returned  ;  and  his  powerful  supporters,  Conkling,  of  New  York,  Cameron,  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  Logan,  of  Illinois,  were  bent  upon  nominating  him  for  a  third 
term.  His  great  rival  was  James  G.  Blaine,  whose  popularity  was  almost  as 
great  as  that  of  Grant ;  and  Senators  Sherman  and  Edmunds  were  also  strongly 
supported,  especially  by  those  who  disliked  the  "  third  term  "  idea.  Garfield 
was  himself  a  delegate  from  Ohio.  Sherman  was  the  man  of  his  choice,  and  he 
worked  with  all  his  might  to  secure  his  nomination. 

For  a  full  week  the  convention  continued  in  session.  Thirty-five  ballots 
were  cast  without  a  majority  for  any  one  ^ 
of  the  candidates.  On  the  morning  of 
the  last  day  the  thirtieth  ballot  resulted 
in  306  votes  for  Grant;  279  for  Blaine; 
120  for  Sherman  ;  -XiZ  ^^^  Washburne  ;  1 1 
for  Edmunds  ;  4  for  Windom  ;  and  2  for 
Garfield,  Nothing  could  change  the  vote 
of  Grant's  famous  "  306  ; "  but  neither 
could  the  best  efforts  of  his  friends  in- 
crease the  ranks  of  that  faithful  band  ;  and 
378  was  the  number  required  for  a  nomi- 
nation. It  became  evident  also  that  Blaine 
could  not  be  nominated,  although  his  sup- 
porters were  almost  as  steady  as  those 
of  Grant.  His  vote,  which  on  the  first 
ballot  was  284,  remained  nearly  the  same 
until  the  last  day.  Evidently  the  vote  of 
those  opposed  to  Grant  must  be  massed 
upon    some  other  candidate.      Who  that 

candidate  was  did  not  appear  until  the  thirty-fourth  ballot,  when  i  7  votes  were 
cast  for  Garfield.  As  soon  as  this  result  was  announced,  the  end  of  the  long 
struggle  was  foreseen.  On  the  next  ballot  his  vote  increased  to  50,  and  on  the 
thirty-sixth  and  last,  nearly  all  the  delegates  except  Grant's  immovable  306 
came  over  to  Garfield  with  a  rush.  He  received  399  votes,  which  made  him 
the  choice  of  the  convention  for  President. 

Garfield's  opponent  in  the  canvass  was  General  Winfield  S.  Hancock,  one 
of  the  bravest  soldiers  of  the  civil  war,  who  had  been  wounded  at  the  great 
battle  of  Gettysburg.  The  tariff  question  was  the  chief  issue  of  the  campaign  ; 
and  on  this  and  similar  questions  of  national  policy  Garfield  was  admirably 
equipped  and  perfectly  at  home ;   while  to  General  Hancock,  whose  tr^iining 


HON.  JOHN  SHERMAN. 


iq6 


JAMES  A.    GARFIELD. 


was  altogether  that  of  a  soldier,  they  were  new  and  unfamiliar.  After  an  active 
and  ably-fought  contest,  Garfield  was  elected  by  a  vote  of  214,  to  155  for  his 
competitor. 

Garfield's  administration  began  with  war, — political  war, — war  with  the 
elements  in  his  own  party  which  had  supported  Grant  at  the  Chicago  conven- 
tion, and  which  now  transferred  the  contest  to  the  Senate.  So  peculiar  was  this 
well-remembered  struggle,  and  so  far-reaching  in  its  effects,  that  the  story  de- 
serves to  be  briefly  told. 

The   very  first   question   that   met  Garfield   on   his  accession  was   that  of 

appointments.  Mr.  Conkling,  the 
senior  senator  from  New  York, 
had  been  the  chief  and  most 
determined  advocate  of  Grant's 
nomination.  By  the  practice 
known  as  the  "courtesy  of  the 
Senate,"  it  was  customary  for 
that  body  to  decline  to  confirm 
nominations  made  by  the  Presi- 
dent to  offices  in  any  State 
which  were  distasteful  to  the 
senators  from  that  State.  In 
making  nominations  for  New 
York  offices  the  President  had  in 
most  cases  named  men  unobjec- 
tionable to  Senator  Conklinsf  • 
but  following  these  was  one  of 
William  H.  Robertson  to  be  col- 
lector of  customs  at  New  York, 
which  was  especially  obnoxious 
to  him.  Judge  Robertson  had 
been  one  of  the  New  York  dele- 
gates to  the  Chicago  convention,  and  had  led  in  organizing  the  final  "  bolt  "  to 
Garfield.  An  effort  was  made  to  get  the  President  to  withdraw  this  nomina- 
tion ;  but  he  declined.  Mr.  Conkling  then  brought  about  an  arrangement  with 
the  Democratic  senators  by  which  all  nominations  opposed  by  a  senator  from 
the  nominee's  State  should  "lie  over"  without  action,  but  others  should  be 
confirmed.  The  effect  of  this  was  to  force  Mr.  Robertson's  nomination  to  go 
over  until  the  following  December.  With  this  result  Mr.  Conkling  was  highly 
pleased,  for  he  had  succeeded  in  driving  the  senators  into  a  support  of  him 
without  making  an  open  rupture  between  them  and  the  President,  Mr.  Conk- 
ling, it  seemed  that  night,  had  the  best  of  it. 


CHESTER  ALAN  ARTHUR,  GARFIE 


THE  ASSASSINATION.  197 

The  President,  however,  was  not  yet  beaten.  With  magnificent  pluck,  that 
was  hailed  by  the  people  everywhere  with  applause,  he  dealt  Mr,  Conkling  a 
fatal  blow.  The  next  morning.  May  5th,  all  the  nominations  that  were  pleasing 
to  Mr.  Conkling  were  withdrawn  ;  that  of  Judge  Robertson  was  not.  This 
defined  the  issue  sharply,  and  obliged  senators  to  choose  between  the  President 
and  the  New  York  senator.  They  declined  to  follow  Mr.  Conkling,  and  Rob- 
ertson's nomination  was  confirmed.  Then  Mr.  Conkling  and  his  colleague, 
Mr.  Piatt,  in  the  most  sensational  manner  resigned  their  seats  in  the  Senate, 
evidently  believing  that  they  would  be  promptly  re-elected,  and  thus  secure  a 
"vindication  "  of  their  course  from  their  own  State. 

But  they  reckoned  without  their  host.  The  fight  was  now  transferred  to 
Albany  ;  but  Mr.  Conkling's  power  over  the  New  York  Legislature  was  gone. 
Public  opinion  sustained  the  President.  The  two  senators  resorted  to  every 
expedient  known  to  politics  to  secure  their  re-election,  but  their  efforts  were  in 
vain  ;  Messrs.  Miller  and  Lapham  were  chosen  to  fill  the  vacant  seats,  and  the 
two  ex-senators  were  allowed  to  remain  in  private  life.  But  before  this  result 
was  reached,  and  while  the  ignoble  struggle  was  still  going  on  in  the  New  York 
Legislature,  the  great  tragedy  occurred  which  plunged  the  whole  country  into 
deep  sorrow. 

THE    TRAGEDY    OF     1881. 

Saturday,  July  2,  1881,  was  a  fair,  hot  midsummer  day.  The  inmates  of 
the  White  House  were  astir  early.  The  President  was  going  to  Massachusetts 
to  attend  the  commencement  exercises  at  his  old  college  at  Williamstown,  and 
afterward  to  take  a  holiday  jaunt  through  New  England,  accompanied  byseveral 
members  of  the  Cabinet  and  other  friends.  His  wife,  who  was  at  Long  Branch, 
New  Jersey,  just  recovering  from  a  severe  attack  of  malarial  fever,  was  to  join 
him  at  New  York.  He  had  looked  forward  with  almost  boyish  delight  to  his 
trip,  and  was  in  high  spirits  as  he  and  Secretary  Blaine  drove  off  to  the  railway 
station. 

There  was  no  crowd  about.  Most  of  those  who  were  to  take  the  train  had 
already  gone  on  board.  Among  the  few  persons  in  the  waiting-room  was  a 
slender,  middle-aged  man,  who  walked  up  and  down  rather  nervously,  occasion- 
ally looking  out  of  the  door  as  if  expecting  some  one.  There  was  nothing 
about  him  to  attract  special  notice,  and  no  one  paid  much  attention  to  him. 
When  President  Garfield  and  Mr.  Blaine  entered,  he  drew  back,  took  a  heavy 
revolver  from  his  pocket,  and,  taking  deliberate  aim,  fired.  The  ball  struck  the 
President  on  the  shoulder.  He  turned,  surprised,  to  see  who  had  shot  him. 
The  assassin  recocked  his  revolver  and  fired  again,  and  then  turned  to  flee. 
The  President  fell  to  the  floor,  the  blood  gushing  from  a  wound  in  his  side. 

In  a  moment  all  was  confusion  and  horror.  Secretary  Blaine  sprang  after 
the  assassin,  but,  seeing  that  he  was  caught,  turned  again  to  the   President. 

I2S&D 


198 


JAMES  A.  GARFIELD. 


The  shock  had  been  great,  and  he  was  very  pale.  A  mattress  was  brought,  his 
tall  form  was  lifted  tenderly  into  an  ambulance,  and  he  was  swiftly  borne  to  the 
Executive  Mansion.  His  first  thought  was  for  his  wife — the  beloved  wife  of  his 
youth,  just  recovering  from  sickness,  expecting  in  a  few  hours  to  meet  him. 
How  would  she  bear  the  tidings  of  this  blow  ? 

"  Rockwell,"  he  said,  faintly,  to  a  friend,  "  I  want  you  to  send  a  message  to 
'  Crete  '  "  (the  pet  name  for  his  wife,  Lucretia).  "  Tell  her  I  am  seriously  hurt — 
how  seriously  I  cannot  yet  say.  I  am  myself,  and  hope  she  will  come  to  me 
soon.      I  send  my  love  to  her."     During  the  dictation  of  the  dispatch,  Dr.  Bliss 

and  several 
other  physi- 
cians arrived. 
A  hasty  in- 
spection de- 
mon St  rated 
that  the  Presi- 
dent was  ter- 
ribly wounded. 
'  A  swift 
train  brought 
Mrs.  Garfield 
to  her  h  u  s  . 
band's  side 
that  eveninof. 
The  persons 
present  in  the 
sick-room  r  e  - 
tired  to  allow 
Mrs.  Garfield 
to  meet  her 
husband  alone 
as  he  had  requested.  They  remained  together  only  five  minutes  ;  but  the 
effect  of  this  brief  interview  was  soon  seen  in  the  rallying  of  the  almost  dying 
man.  At  the  end  of  that  time  the  doctors  were  again  admitted,  and  then 
began  the  long  struggle  for  life,  with  its  fluctuations  between  hope  and  dread, 
which,  lasted  for  almost  three  months.  Just  after  Mrs.  Garfield's  arrival 
there  was  a  sudden  collapse  which  seemed  to  be  the  end,  and  the  family  of  the 
President  were  hastily  summoned  to  his  bedside  ;  but  to  the  surprise  of  every- 
one, the  crisis  passed,  and  for  three  weeks  he  seemed  to  improve.  Then  came 
a  turn  for  the  worse,  and  from  that  time  the  President  lost  ground.  The  hot 
summer  days,  hard  to  bear  even  for  thgse  in  full  health,  wasted  and  weakened 


GARFIELD'S  ASSASSINATION 


THE  FUNERAL  TRAIN.  x^q 

him  terribly.  He  sank  steadily  ;  and  it  was  seen  that  unless  relief  from  the 
intense  heat  could  be  had,  he  would  inevitably  die  within  a  few  days.  It  was 
decided  to  remove  him  to  Elberon,  on  the  ocean  shore,  near  Lono-  Branch,  New 
Jersey,  and  on  September  7th,  accompanied  by  his  family  and  the  members  of 
his  cabinet,  he  was  borne  by  a  swift  special  train  northward*  to  the  seaside.  A 
summer  cottage  had  been  offered  for  his  use,  and  there  for  two  anxious  weeks 
lay  the  man  who,  it  may  be  truly  said,  had  become 

The  pillar  of  a  people's  hope, 
The  centre  of  a  world's  desire. 

The  cooling  breezes  of  the  seaside  brought  some  relief,  and  the  change,  no 
doubt,  prolonged  his  life  ;  but  it  could  not  be  saved.  In  the  night  of  September 
19th,  almost  without  warning,  the  end  came;  the  feeble  flame  of  life,  so 
anxiously  watched  and  cherished,  flickered  a  moment,  and  then  went  out  in  the 
darkness. 

The  President's  body  was  borne  back  to  Washington,  where  it  lay  in  state, 
viewed  by  great  throngs  of  mourning  people  ;  then  it  was  taken  westward  to 
Cleveland,  and  laid  in  the  tomb  by  the  shores  of  Lake  Erie,  almost  in  sight  of 
his  old  home.  The  journey  was  one  long  funeral  pageant.  For  almost  the 
entire  distance  the  railway  tracks  were  lined  with  crowds  of  people,  who,  with 
uncovered  heads,  stood  in  reverent  silence  as  the  train  passed.  Not  since  the 
day  when  that  other  dead  President,  the  great  Lincoln,  was  borne  to  his  last 
resting-place,  had  such  an  assembly  been  gathered  ;  and  the  love  and  grief 
which  followed  Garfield  to  his  gfrave  are  the  best  tribute  to  the  worth  of  his 
character. 

Five  months  later,  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washing- 
ton, amid  such  a  throng  as  that  chamber  has  seldom  seen.  Secretary  Blaine 
delivered  his  eulogy  of  the  dead  President ;  and  from  that  splendid  and  pathetic 
address  we  take  the  concluding  words,  which  will  fitly  close  this  brief  sketch  : — 

"Great  in  life,  he  was  surpassingly  great  in  death.  .  .  Through  days  of  deadly  languor, 
through  weeks  of  agony  that  was  not  less  agony  because  silently  borne,  with  clear  sight  and  calm 
courage,  he  looked  into  his  open  grave.  What  blight  and  ruin  met  his  anguished  eyes,  whose  lips 
may  tell  ! — what  brilliant  broken  plans,  what  baffled  high  ambitions,  what  sundering  of  strong,  warm 
manhood's  friendships,  what  bitter  rending  of  sweet  household  tics  !  Behind  him  a  proud,  expect- 
ant nation,  a  great  host  of  sustaining  friends,  a  cherished  and  happy  mother,  wearing  the  full,  rich 
honors  of  her  early  toils  and  tears  ;  the  wife  of  his  youth,  whose  whole  life  lay  in  his  ;  the  little 
boys,  not  yet  emerged  from  childhood's  day  of  frolic  ;  the  fair  young  daughter  ;  the  sturdy  sons  just 
springing  into  closest  companionship,  claiming  every  day  and  every  day  rewarding  a  father's  love 
and  care  ;  and  in  his  heart  eager,  rejoicing  power  to  meet  all  demand.  Before  him,  desolation, 
and  great  darkness  !  And  his  soul  was  not  shaken.  His  countrymen  were  thrilled  with  instant 
profound,  and  universal  sympathy.  Masterful  in  his  mortal  weakness,  he  became  the  centre  of  a 
nation's  love,  enshrined  in  the  prayers  of  a  world.  But  all  the  love  and  all  the  sympathy  could  not 
share  with  him  his  suffering.      He  trod  the  wine-press  alone.     With  unfaltering  front  he  faced  death. 


200 


JAMES  A.  GARFIELD. 


With  unfailing  tenderness  he  took  leave  of  life.      Above  the  demoniac  hiss  of  the  assassin's  bullet  he 
heard  the  voice  of  God.      With  simple  resignation  he  bowed  to  the  Divine  decree. 

As  the  end  drew  near,  his  early  craving  for  the  sea  returned.  The  stately  mansion  of  power 
had  been  to  him  a  wearisome  hospital  of  pain,  and  he  begged  to  be  taken  from  its  prison  walls, 
from  its  oppressive,  stifling  air,  from  its  homelessness  and  hopelessness.  Gently,  silently,  the  love 
of  a  great  people  bore  the  pale  sufferer  to  the  longed  for  heahng  of  the  sea,  to  hve  or  die,  as  God 
should  will,  within  sight  of  its  heaving  billows,  within  sound  of  its  manifold  voices.  With  wan, 
fevered  face  tenderly  hfted  to  the  cooling  breeze,  he  looked  out  wistfully  upon  the  ocean's  changing 
wonders ;  on  its  fair  sails,  whitening  in  the  morning  light ;  on  its  restless  waves,  rolling  shoreward 
to  break  and  die  beneath  the  noonday  sun  ;  on  the  red  clouds  of  evening,  arching  low  to  the  hori- 
zon ;  on  the  serene  and  shining  pathway  of  th  j  stars.  Let  us  think  that  his  dying  eyes  read  a  mystic 
meaning  which  only  the  rapt  and  parting  soul  may  know.  Let  us  believe  that  in  the  silence  of  the 
receding  world  he  heard  the  great  waves  breaking  on  a  farther  shore  and  felt  already  upon  his 
wasted  brow  the  breath  of  eternal  morning. 


T'VBLET    WHICH    WAS    ri.ACKD    IN    THE   WAITING  ROdM    OF    THE 
RAILWAY    STATION    WHERE    GARFIELD    WAS    SHOT. 


POLITICAL  GIANTS   OF  THE   PRESENT   DAY. 


BY   EDWARD   S.  ELLIS,  A.  M., 
Author  of  "Standard  History  of  the  United  States.'* 


BENJAMIN    HARRISON. 
SOLDIER,  ORATOR  AND  STATESMAN. 

When  General  William 
Henry  Harrison,  the  hero 
of  Tippecanoe  and  of  more 
than  one  important  battle  of 
the  war  of  1812,  succumbed 
to  the  torments  which  beset 
every  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  suddenly  died  one 
month  after  his  inauguration, 
he  left  a  grandson  named 
Benjamin,  not  quite  eight 
years  old,  who  was  the  third 
son  of  John  Scott  Harrison 
and  was  born  at  North  Bend, 
Ohio,  August  20,  1833.  His 
father  was  the  owner  of  a 
large  farm,  where  the  son 
toiled  while  a  boy,  and  laid 
the  foundation  of  the  rugged 
health  and  strength  which 
stood  him  so  well  in  after 
years. 

The  first  school  which 
Benjamin  Harrison  attended 
was  kept  in  a  log  building, 

where,  so  far  as  is  known,  he  was  neither  a  dull  nor  an  unusually  bright  pupil 
It  may  have  been  too  early  in  life  for  him  to  display  the  ability  which  afterward 

201 


BENJAMIN    HARRISON. 


202  BENJAMIN  HARRISON. 

carried  him  to  the  highest  office  in  the  gift  of  his  countrymen.  He  was  for- 
tunate in  having  a  sensible  parent,  who,  knowing  the  vahie  of  education,  sent 
him  at  the  age  of  fifteen  to  Farmers'  (now  Belmont)  College,  near  Cincinnati. 
He  remained  two  years  and  then  became  a  student  at  Miami  University,  Oxford, 
where  he  attracted  attention  by  his  skill  as  a  debater  and  orator. 

While  a  law  student,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Miss  Caroline  L.  Scott, 
a  most  estimable  young  woman,  and  daughter  of  the  president  of  the  University. 
The  two  formed  a  strong,  mutual  attachment,  and  were  married  in  1853,  before 
Harrison  had  attained  his  majority.  He  was  graduated  in  1852,  fourth  in  his 
class. 

He  entered  the  law  office  of  Storer  &  Gwynne,  and  shortly  after  was 
admitted  to  the  bar.  Moving  to  Indianapolis  in  the  following  year,  he  began 
to  practice,  and  has  made  that  city  his  home  ever  since.  Clients  were  not 
numerous  nor  were  fees  large,  but  those  who  employed  young  Harrison  found 
him  conscientious,  devoted  to  their  interests,  and  possessed  of  sterling  integrity 
and  marked  ability.  He  was  prompt  and  kept  his  promises.  A  lawyer  of  that 
kind  is  sure  to  succeed. 

In  1855,  he  entered  into  partnership  with  William  Wallace,  but  six  years 
later  that  gentleman  was  elected  county  clerk  and  Harrison  associated  himself 
with  W.  P.  Fishback.  When  fairly  started  upon  what  was  a  most  promising 
career,  his  patriotism  led  him  into  the  military  service  of  his  country,  where  he 
made  a  fine  record.  He  was  mustered  in  as  Second  Lieutenant,  July  14,  1862, 
as  Captain  eight  days  later,  and  then,  August  7th,  as  Colonel  of  the  70th 
regiment  of  infantry,  the  term  of  enlistment  being  for  three  years.  He 
commanded  his  regiment  until  the  20th  of  August,  1863  ;  the  second  brigade 
of  the  third  division,  reserve  corps,  until  September  20,  1863  ;  his  regiment 
again  to  January  9,  1864,  and  the  first  brigade,  third  division,  20th  army  corps, 
to  September  23,  1864,  on  which  date  he  was  detailed  for  special  duty  in 
Indiana.  Returning  to  duty  in  the  field,  he  was  ordered  in  November,  1864, 
to  report  in  person  to  the  general  commanding  at  Nashville,  Tenn.  He 
afterward  commanded  the  ist  brigade,  provisional  division,  Army  of  the 
Cumberland,  to  January  16,  1865,  when  upon  his  own  request,  he  was  relieved 
and  directed  to  rejoin  his  command,  which  was  then  at  Savannah,  Georgia^ 
under  General  Sherman.  On  his  way  thither,  he  was  stricken  with  what 
threatened  to  be  a  fatal  illness,  but,  rallying,  he  pressed  on.  He  was  not 
yet  fully  recovered  and  was  placed  in  command  of  the  camp  for  convalescents 
and  recruits  at  Blair's  Landing,  South  Carolina.  He  soon  after  joined  General 
Sherman  at  Raleigh,  where  he  resumed  comraand  of  the  ist  brigade,  3d 
division,  20th  army  corps,  April  21,  1865,  and  was  relieved  therefrom  June  8th, 
because  of  the  mustering  out  of  the  troops  composing  it.  On  the  same  day 
he  was  mustered  out  and  honorably  discharged. 


BENJAMIN  HARRISON  203 

As  we  have  said,  General  Harrison  made  a  most  creditable  record  in  the 
field,  "Little  Ben"  quickly  won  the  reputation  of  being-  a  brave  man  and  a 
skilful  leader.  He  was  very  popular  with  his  own  men  and  with  the  general 
officers.  His  regiment  had  no  superior  in  effectiveness  and  discipline.  He 
was  in  action  at  Russelville,  Kentucky,  and  in  the  numerous  severe  engage- 
ments of  the  Atlanta  campaign,  and  was  present  at  the  surrender  of  General 
Jo  Johnston,  at  Durham's  Station,  North  Carolina,  April  26,  1865.  Fighting 
Jo  Hooker  considered  Harrison  without  a  superior  as  a  regimental  and  brigade 
commander,  and  it  was  at  his  request  that,  January  23,  1865,  he  was  breveted 
brigadier  general  of  volunteers,  "  for  ability  and  manifest  energy  and  gallantry 
in  command  of  a  brigade," 

He  had  already  won  a  fine  reputation  as  a  lawyer  in  Indianapolis.  He 
was  elected  in  i860,  reporter  of  the  Supreme  Court,  but  the  office  was  vacated 
by  his  enlistment.  He  was  overwhelmingly  re-elected  in  1864,  while  absent 
in  the  field.  At  the  close  of  the  term,  he  had  a  lucrative  practice,  and  was 
retained  in  nearly  all  the  important  cases  in  his  State.  In  1876,  Godlove  S, 
Orth,  Republican  candidate  for  Governor,  withdrew  during  the  canvass  and 
Harrison's  name  was  substituted  without  consultation  with  him  and  while  he 
was  absent  from  the  State.  He  made  a  plucky  fight,  but  Governor  Hendricks' 
popularity  was  too  great  to  be  overcome. 

In  1880,  Harrison  was  chairman  of  the  Indiana  delegation  in  the  convention 
which  nominated  James  A.  Garfield  for  the  presidency.  A  strong  pressure  was 
brought  to  bear  upon  him  to  permit  his  name  to  be  presented  but  he  refused. 
His  splendid  work  and  his  great  ability  led  Garfield  to  offer  him  a  place  in  his 
Cabinet,  which  he  declined.  He  was  chosen  United  States  Senator  in  1881  and 
served  for  six  years,  during  which  he  took  rank  among  the  foremost  debaters 
and  leaders. 

In  the  Chicago  presidential  convention  in  1888,  Harrison  was  nominated 
on  the  eighth  ballot.  During  that  memorable  campaign,  he  made  ninety-four 
speeches,  all  of  which  were  forceful,  effective  and  beyond  criticism  even  by  his 
enemies.  His  most  extraordinary  achievement,  however,  was  after  his  election 
to  the  presidency.  Leaving  Washington,  April  1 5th,  he  made  a  journey  of  10,000 
miles  to  and  from  the  Pacific  coast,  returning  exactly  one  month  later.  On  that 
journey,  he  made  one  hundred  and  forty  addresses,  some  of  them  on  five 
minutes'  notice.  His  audiences  at  times  included  old  Confederates,  colored 
men  and  representatives  of  nearly  every  grade  of  society.  He  was  taken  with- 
out warning  to  institutions  of  learning,  before  the  blind,  the  educated,  and  was 
brought  face  to  face  with  those  who  had  seldom  seen  the  inside  of  institutions 
of  learning.  In  none  of  his  numerous  addresses  did  President  Harrison  repeat 
himself.  Each  speech  was  in  exquisite  taste,  often  rising  to  heights  of  genuine 
eloquence.     The  most   prominent    newspaper  which  opposed  his  election  de- 


204  GROVER   CLEVELAND. 

clared  that  President  Harrison  has  never  had  a  superior,  if  irideed  an  equal,  as 
an  effective  off-hand  speaker. 

•  His  administration  was  worthy  and  dignified,  and  though  his  Cabinet  con- 
tained the  brilHant  Blaine,  yet  Harrison  was  President  at  all  times  and  his 
influence  was  felt  in  every  department.  Above  all  things,  he  was  a  patriot  and 
an  American  under  all  circumstances.  His  renomination  at  Minneapolis  was  to 
be  expected,  but  the  desire  for  a  change  throughout  the  country,  rather  than 
any  distrust  of  the  President  or  disfavor  with  his  work,  led  to  his  defeat  by 
Grover  Cleveland.  A  few  days  before  election  Mrs.  Harrison  died,  after  a  long 
and  painful  illness.  The  lives  of  the  two  had  been  an  ideal  one,  and  no  couple 
ever  were  more  tenderly  attached  to  each  other. 

After  his  retirement  from  the  presidency,  General  Harrison  was  engaged 
by  the  late  Senator  Leland  Stanford  of  California  to  deliver  a  course  of  lectures 
before  the  University  he  had  founded,  upon  constitutional  law.  His  practice 
expanded  and  he  easily  took  rank  among  the  ablest  and  most  successful  coun- 
sellors in  the  country.  He  was  prominently  mentioned  as  a  presidential  candi- 
date, as  President  Cleveland's  term  drew  to  a  close,  the  conviction  being 
general  among  the  Republicans  that,  with  his  past  record  and  his  great  ability, 
he  was  certain  of  success  in  the  struggle  of  1896.  The  nomination,  however, 
seemed  to  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  General  Harrison  and  in  February, 
1896,  he  made  public  his  decision  not  to  be  a  candidate.  In  January,  1896,  he 
announced  his  engagement  to  Mrs.  Dimmick,  a  niece  of  the  late  Mrs.  Harrison. 

In  1896  he  married  Mrs.  Dimmick,  a  niece  of  the  late  Mrs.  Harrison,  and 
had  one  child,  a  girl.  In  1899  he  represented  the  government  of  Venezuela 
in  her  dispute  with  the  British  government.  After  fulfilling  this  mission, 
which  was  conducted  in  Paris,  he  visited  England,  and  was  received  with 
marked  distinction  by  the  Prince  of  Wales.  He  died  after  a  short  illness  at 
his  home  in  Indianapolis,  March  13,  1901. 

GROVER   CLEVELAND. 

SUCCESSFUL  LAWYER,  GOVERNOR  AND  PRESIDENT. 

Grover  Cleveland,  twenty-second  and  twenty-fourth  President  of  the 
United  States,  was  born  in  the  village  of  Caldwell,  Essex  County,  New  Jersey, 
March  18,  1837.  He  was  the  son  of  Richard  Falley  Cleveland,  a  Presbyterian 
minister,  who  was  graduated  at  Yale  in  1824,  and  five  years  later  married  Annie 
Neal,  daughter  of  a  Baltimore  merchant. 

When  the  son  was  four  years  old  his  father  accepted  a  call  to  Fayetteville, 
near  Syracuse,  New  York,  where  the  boy  attended  the  academy,  and  afterward 
served  as  clerk  in  a  country  store.  Some  time  later  the  family  removed  to 
Clinton,  in  Oneida  County,  and  Grover  was  a  student  at  the  academy  there. 


GROVER    CLEVELAND. 


205 


At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  became  a  clerk  and  assistant  teacher  in  the  New  York 
Institution  for  the  BHnd,  in  New  York  city.  In  the  same  institution  his  elder 
brother,  William,  now  a  preacher,  was  also  a  teacher. 

Grover  was  an  excellent  teacher,  but  yielding  to  ambition,  he  decided  to 
go  West,  where  he  believed  greater  opportunities  for  mental  growth  and 
success  awaited  him.  He  stopped  at  Black  Rock,  now  a  part  of  the  city  of 
Buffalo,  and  called  upon  his  uncle,  Lewis  F.  Allen,  who  persuaded  him  to  stay 
and  help  in  the  compilation 
of  a  volume  of  the  "American 
Herd  Book."  He  assisted  in 
the  preparation  of  several 
more  volumes,  and  in  Au- 
gust, 1855,  became  a  clerk 
and  copyist  for  the  law  firm 
of  Rogers,  Bowen  &  Rogers, 
in  Buffalo.  He  took  up  the 
study  of  law  and  was  admit- 
ted to  the  bar  in  1859, 
Meanwhile  his  father  died, 
and,  that  he  might  be  able  to 
support  his  mother,  Grover 
remained  three  years  longer 
with  the  firm  at  a  moderate 
salary. 

His  worth  and  ability 
had  attracted  favorable  no- 
tice, and  he  was  appointed 
assistant  district  attorney  of 
Erie  County,  January  i,  1863, 
holding  the  office  for  three 
years.  He  was  defeated  in 
1865,  ^s  the  Democratic 
candidate  for  district  attor- 
ney, and  became  a  law  partner  of  Isaac  V.  Vanderpool,  uniting,  in  1869, 
with  the  firm  of  Lanning  &  Folsom.  By  this  time  he  had  attained  marked 
success,  and  in  1870  was  elected  sheriff  of  Erie  County.  At  the  end  of 
his  three  years'  term,  he  formed  a  law  partnership  with  his  intimate  friend, 
Lyman  K.  Bass,  who  had  defeated  him  for  the  district  attorneyship,  the  firm 
being  Bass,  Cleveland  &  Bissell.  Ill  health  compelled  the  retirement  of  Mr. 
Bass,  when  the  firm  became  Cleveland  &  Bissell.  It  was  very  successful,  and 
Mr.  Cleveland's  reputation  increased. 


GROVER   CtEVELAND. 


2o6  GROVER   CLEVELAND. 

One  of  the  marked  features  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  early  public  career  was  hia 
great  popularity  when  he  appeared  as  a  candidate  for  the  suffrages  of  the 
people.  Being  nominated  by  the  Democrats  for  mayor  of  Buffalo,  in  the 
autumn  of  1881,  he  received  the  largest  majority  (3,530)  ever  given  to  a 
candidate  in  that  city,  although  the  Republican  ticket  was  successful  in  other 
directions.  He  was  supported  not  only  by  his  own  party  but  by  the  inde- 
pendent and  the  "reform"  movements.  He  fulfilled  the  expectations  of  his 
supporters,  vetoing  extravagant  measures,  and  conducting  his  office  in  so 
prudent  and  economical  a  manner  that  he  saved  fully  ^1,000,000  to  Buffalo 
during  the  first  six  months  of  his  term.  His  course  gave  him  ?uch  a  popularity 
that  in  September,  1882,  he  was  nominated  for  governor  of  the  State.  His 
opponent  was  Charles  J.  Folger,  then  Secretary  of  the  United  States  Treasury. 
Both  men  had  a  record  that  could  not  be  assailed,  and  the  result  was  astound- 
ing. In  a  vote  of  918,894,  Cleveland  received  a  plurality  of  192,854,  giving 
him  a  majority  over  his  opponent,  the  greenback,  prohibition,  and  scattering 
vote,  of  151,742,  the  like  of  which  was  never  before  known  in  the  Empire  State. 
The  vote  was  so  tremendous  that  it  attracted  national  attention,  and  convinced 
the  Democratic  party  that  if  the  new  governor  made  no  blunder  during  his 
administration,  he  would  be  the  most  available  candidate  for  the  presidency. 

Governor  Cleveland  made  no  blunders  that  could  mar  his  prospects.  He 
was  able,  honest,  and  wholly  devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  State.  At  the 
Democratic  national  convention,  held  in  Chicago,  in  July,  1884,  after  several 
days  devoted  to  organization  and  the  presenting  of  the  names  of  the  candidates, 
he  received  the  nomination,  which  he  formally  accepted  by  letter  on  the  1 8th  of 
August. 

Four  candidates  were  before  the  country  in  November,  1884:  Cleveland 
of  New  York,  the  regular  Democratic  nominee  ;  James  G.  Blaine  of  Maine, 
Republican  ;  Benjamin  F.  Butler  of  Massachusetts,  labor  and  greenback  ;  and 
John  P.  St.  John  of  Kansas,  prohibition.  One  of  those  little  incidents  which 
can  never  be  foreseen,  a:id  which  often  overturn  the  best  laid  plans,  led  to  the 
defeat  of  Blaine.  At  a  public  reception.  Reverend  Dr.  Burchard,  in  addressing 
Mr.  Blaine,  referred  to  the  Democratic  party  as  that  of  "Rum,  Romanism,  and 
Rebellion."  Mr.  Blaine  did  not  catch  the  expression,  or,  as  he  afterward 
declared,  he  would  have  reproved  it,  but  the  mischief  was  done  so  far  as  he  was 
concerned.  The  charge  against  him  was  used  so  skilfully  that  the  Republican 
candidate  lost  the  vote  of  New  York  by  a  trifling  majority.  This  gave  Cleve- 
land 219  electoral  votes  to  182  for  Blaine,  while  the  popular  vote  stood: 
Cleveland,  4,874,986;  Blaine,  4,851,081. 

President  Cleveland  was  inaugurated  on  the  4th  of  March  following,  and 
called  around  him  an  able  Cabinet.  He  proved  himself  sincere  when  he 
declared  he  would  do  his  utmost  to  carry  out  the  policy  of  civil  service  reform. 


GROVER   CLEVELAND.  20- 

This  course  alienated  some  of  his  supporters  who  beheved  in  the  doctrine  that 
"to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils,"  and  who  considered  all  ante-election  pledges 
to  the  contrary  as  intended  simply  to  catch  votes,  but  President  Cleveland 
adhered  to  the  policy  to  the  end,  earning  the  respect  of  both  parties  by  his 
courage  and  sincerity.  He  used  the  veto  power  with  the  same  severity  as 
when  Mayor  and  Governor.  He  favored  a  reduction  of  the  tariff,  with  the 
ultimate  establishment  of  freer  trade. 

A  pleasing  incident  of  President  Cleveland's  first  administration  was  his 
marriage,  at  the  White  House,  June  2,  1886,  to  Miss  P'rances  Folsom,  daughter 
of  Oscar  Folsom,  the  President's  intimate  friend.  The  whole  country  felt 
an  interest  in  the  happy  event,  and  Mrs.  Cleveland,  as  the  leading  lady 
of  the  land,  has  commanded  the  admiring  respect  of  the  nation  and  of  all  with 
whom  she  has  come  in  contact.  No  more  graceful  or  accomplished  lady  has 
ever  presided  at  the  White  House. 

In  the  autumn  of  1888,  President  Cleveland  found  himself  pitted  against 
General  Benjamin  Harrison,  with  the  result  that  has  already  been  stated.  Of 
the  popular  vote,  Cleveland  received  5,540,329  and  Harrison  5,439,853,  while 
of  the  electoral  votes,  168  went  to  Cleveland  and  233  to  Harrison. 

In  1892,  the  same  gentlemen  were  the  leading  candidates  and  the  verdict 
was  reversed;  Cleveland  received  5,553,142  and  Harrison  5,186,931  on  the 
popular  vote,  while  in  the  electoral  college  276  votes  went  to  Cleveland  and 
145  to  Harrison.  It  was  the  first  time  in  our  history  that  a  President  was  re- 
elected after  being  out  of  office  for  one  term. 

It  is  not  the  province  of  this  sketch  to  give  a  history  of  the  leading  features 
of  President  Cleveland's  administrations.  A  monetary  stringency  and  a  great 
depression  of  business  were  accompanied  by  a  formidable  railway  strike  which 
necessitated  the  calling  out  of  the  United  States  troops  in  several  parts  of  the 
country. 

The  time  when  President  Cleveland  "struck  fire,"  however,  was  in  his 
message  to  Congress,  on  December  17,  1895.  England,  whose  "earth  hunger" 
is  insatiable,  and  who  has  appropriated  land  in  all  parts  of  the  worid,  often 
without  regard  to  right  and  justice,  had  disputed  for  years  with  Venezuela  over 
the  boundary  between  that  country  and  British  Guiana,  obtained  by  England 
from  The  Netherlands  in  18 14.  Learning  that  the  interior  of  Venezuela  con- 
tains valuable  gold  mines,  England  set  up  a  claim,  which  if  allowed  would  have 
split  Venezuela  almost  in  half.  That  weak  country  protested,  but  was  power- 
less. England  refused  to  arbitrate,  but  meant  to  v/in  by  the  bullying  course 
which  she  is  so  fond  of  adopting  with  feeble  nations. 

The  United  States  could  not  view  with  indifference  this  dismemberment  of 
a  sister  republic  on  the  American  continent,  for  it  would  be  a  flagrant  violation 
of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  enunciated  in  1823,  which  declared  in  language  not  to 


2o8  JOHN  SHERMAN. 

be  mistaken  that  no  part  of  North  or  South  America  from  that  time  forward 
should  be  open  for  colonization  by  any  foreign  power.  Lord  Salisbury,  the 
British  prime  minister,  was  slow  in  replying  to  the  communications  of  our 
government.  When  his  reply  came,  however,  the  President  submitted  it  to 
Congress  with  the  statement  that  the  action  Great  Britian  contemplated  was 
a  violation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  it  was  the  duty  of  the  American 
Government  to  resist,  and  proposed  the  appointment  of  a  commission  by  the 
President  to  determine  the  correct  boundary. 

This  declaration  was  instantly  responded  to  by  an  outburst  ot  patriotic 
fervor  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other,  being  endorsed  everywhere. 
North  and  South,  President  Cleveland  was  declared  to  be  an  American  and  an 
exalted  patriot  of  the  highest  order.  The  result  is  known.  In  the  face  of  an 
impending  war  England  wisely  made  a  virture  of  the  necessity,  yielded  to 
the  inevitable,  and  agreed  to  the  Arbitration  Committee,  admitting  by  her  act 
that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  is  virtually  an  international  law  which  must  be 
respected  by  all  nations. 

The  Committee  appointed  by  the  two  countries  successfully  settled  the 
disputed  boundary  line,  and  prevented  the  loss  of  large  territory  to  Venezuela, 
which  country  might  otherwise  have  suffered  the  penalty  that  the  Boer  Repub- 
lics of  South  Africa  later  suffered  in  1900,  by  being  literally  swallowed  up  by 
England  after  defeat  in  war. 

In  1896  and  1900,  Mr.  Cleveland  refused  to  support  Wm.  Jennings  Bryan, 
the  Democratic  nominee  for  President,  on  account  of  his  difference  with  Mr. 
Bryan  on  the  money  question.  Mr.  Cleveland's  home  is  at  Princeton,  New 
Jersey,  where  he  lectures  in  the  Princeton  University  and  lives  in  quiet 
retirement. 


JOHN    SHERMAN. 

QREAX    KINANCIEK.   AND   STATESNIAN 

John  Sherman  was  admittedly  one  of  the  ablest  financiers  and  foremost 
statesmen  of  America.  He  was  born  May  10,  1823,  at  Lancaster,  Ohio,  and 
was  the  eighth  of  eleven  children.  He  was  the  son  of  Charles  Robert  Sher- 
man, who  settled  in  Lancaster  and  took  a  leading  part  in  the  measures  for 
defence  in  the  war  of  181 2.  He  was  a  prominent  and  respected  citizen,  who 
after  serving  for  six  years  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State, 
died  suddenly  in  the  forty-first  year  of  his  age. 


JOHN  SHERMAN. 


209 


During  his  childhood,  John  Sherman  attended  a  private  school  at  Lancaster, 
but  in  1 83 1,  his  father's  cousin,  a  prosperous  merchant  at  Mount  Vernon,  invited 
him  to  his  home  and  offered  to  take  charge  of  his  education  until  he  was  fitted 
for  Kenyon  College.  The  youth  studied  faithfully  for  four  years,  but,  instead 
of  entering  college,  returned  to  his  mother's  home  and  attended  the  academy 
there.  The  family  were  in  such  straitened  circumstances  that  John  decided  that 
it  was  his  duty  to  give  up  the  plan  of  going  to  college  and  to  support  himself 
instead.  His  elder  brother 
gave  him  employment  as 
junior  rodman  under  the 
engineer  engaged  in  im- 
proving the  Muskingum 
River.  He  improved  his 
leisure  by  study,  but  at  the 
end  of  two  years  lost  his 
place  through  the  sweeping 
political  changes  in  the  State. 
Returning  to  Lancaster  with 
nothing  to  do,  he  fell  for  a 
time  into  bad  habits,  but 
touched  by  the  grief  of  his 
mother  over  his  lapse,  and 
by  a  sense  of  manliness,  he 
quickly  rallied,  and  thence- 
forth was  his  own  "master." 
Ever  since  that  lapse,  Sena- 
tor Sherman  has  been  a  tem- 
perate man,  and  no  one  is 
more  opposed  to  the  drink- 
ing habit  than  he. 

In  the  autumn  of  1839, 
it  was  arranged  that  young 
Sherman  should  study  law 
at  Mansfield  with  his  elder  brother  Charles  and  with  Judge  Parker,  who  had 
married  his  mother's  only  sister.  His  industry  enabled  him  to  support  himself 
while  thus  employed,  and  he  had  been  a  practicing  lawyer  for  more  than  a  year 
before  his  admission  to  the  bar,  which  took  place  on  the  day  that  he  attained  his 
twenty-first  year. 

On  December  31,  1848,  John  Sherman  was  married  to  Miss  Margaret 
Cecilia  Stewart,  only  child  of  Judge  Stewart.  After  their  wedding  tour,  the 
couple  returned  to  Mansfield  and  the  husband  applied  himself  arduously  to  his 


JOHN  SHERMAN. 
Senator,  Great  Financier. 


2IO 


JOHN  SHERMAN. 


profession.  His  industry,  ability  and  integrity  brought  him  success,  and  in  1854 
he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  It  was  in  that  year 
that  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  repealed,  stirring  up  such  a  vehement  revolt 
and  uprising  in  the  North,  that  the  Republican  party  of  to-day  was  born  and 
brought  into  vigorous  existence.  Recently,  when  asked  if  he  remembered  his 
first  speech,  the  distinguished  Senator  said  : — 

"Yes;  I  remember  it  well.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  exciting  Kansas^ 
Nebraska  times  and  there  had  been  numerous  changes  in  the  personnel  of  the 
House.  There  were  many  young  men  among  the  new  members.  Matt  Day, 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  Cincinnati  Commercial,  was  a  member.  He  wrote  a 
great  deal,  but  did  not  speak  much  and  was  slightly  deaf.  He  had  scant  regard 
for  the  sophomoric  efforts  of  the  young  Congressman.  On  the  day  that  I  spoke 
I  sat  behind  him.  Day  would  listen  with  his  hand  at  his  ear,  and  the  moment 
one  had  concluded,  would  say  with  a  grunt  of  satisfaction  : 

*'  'Another  dead  cock  in  the  pit.' 

"  At  last  I  saw  a  place  where  I  thought  I  could  make  a  good  point.  I 
jumped  to  my  feet,  got  the  Speaker's  eye  and  said  my  say.  When  I  was 
through  and  had  sat  down  I  said  :  '  Here  is  another  dead  cock  in  the  pit,  Mr. 
Day.'  But  Day  replied  :  '  No,  my  young  friend,  I  don't  think  it  is  quite  so  bad 
as  that  with  you  yet,'  and  he  gave  me  to  understand  that  I  had  another  chance 
or  oo  for  my  life." 

Mr.  Sherman  spoke  frequently,  and,  despite  his  youth,  speedily  assumed  a 
leading  position  among  his  associates.  He  was  renominated  in  October,  1856, 
and  triumphantly  elected.  He  was  one  of  the  most  active  and  vigorous  workers 
in  the  presidential  campaign  of  that  year,  and  insists  to-day  that  the  Republicans 
would  have  been  successful,  had  they  placed  Seward  or  Chase  in  nomination 
instead  of  Fremont. 

The  career  of  John  Sherman  is  another  proof  that  it  is  brains  and  ability 
which  bring  success  in  this  country.  Chosen  again  in  1858,  a  member  of  the 
House,  he  had  already  become  so  prominent  that  he  was  placed  in  nomination 
for  Speaker.  On  the  twenty-fifth  ballot  he  came  within  three  votes  of  election, 
but  he  eventually  withdrew  and  Pennington  was  chosen  Speaker  by  a  majority 
of  one.  Sherman  was  appointed  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means,  of  which  he  had  not  previously  been  a  member. 

Mr.  Sherman  had  been  elected  a  fourth  time  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
placed  in  nomination  for  the  presidency.  He  had  no  more  ardent  and  power- 
ful supporter  than  Sherman.  In  a  speech  at  Philadelphia,  September  12,  i860, 
he  made  a  number  of  remarkable  prophecies,  every  one  of  which  was  fulfilled 
in  the  momentous  events  that  speedily  followed. 

It  was  February  23,  1861,  that  Lincoln  arrived  in  Washington,  and  Sherman 
met  him  4t  Willard'5  Hotel  in   the  evening,  for  the  first  time.     "  When  intro- 


JOHN  SHERMAN. 


211 


duced  to  him,"  says  Mr.  Sherman,  "he  took  my  hands  in  both  of  his,  drew  himself 
up  to  his  full  height,  and  looking  at  me  steadily,  said  :  '  You  are  John  Sherman  ! 
Well,  I  am  taller  than  you;  let's  measure.'  Thereupon  we  stood  back  to  back, 
and  some  one  present  announced  that  he  was  two  inches  taller  than  I.  This  was 
correct,  for  he  was  six  feet  three  and  a  half  inches  tall  when  he  stood  erect." 

Salmon  P.  Chase,  having  accepted  the  place  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
in  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  his  seat  in  the  Senate  was  taken  by  Sherman,  who  would 
have  preferred  to  remain  in  the  House,  to  which  he  had  just  been  elected  for 
the  fourth  time  and  of  which  he  was  certain  to  be  chosen  Speaker.  But  having 
entered  the  Senate,  Sherman  steadily  rose  to  his  present  exalted  place  in  the 
regard  of  his  countrymen.  In  that  august  body,  he  has  towered  for  years,  head 
and  shoulders  above  his  distinguished  associates,  most  of  whom  are  of  national 
reputation. 

It  seems  to  be  the  law  of  this  country  that  the  greatest  men  in  a  political 
party  fail  to  receive  its  highest  rewards.  The  peerless  Henry  Clay  was  nomi- 
nated three  times  for  the  presidency  but  never  attained  it.  Daniel  Webster, 
longing  with  an  unspeakable  longing  for  the  high  office,  died  a  disappointed 
man.  If  any  Republican  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  was  entitled  to  the 
presidential  nomination  at  the  hands  of  that  party,  John  Sherman  is  pre-emi- 
nently the  man.  More  than  once  it  was  almost  within  his  reach,  but  never  quite 
grasped.  It  was  his  humiliation  to  be  forced  aside,  and  see  the  honor  bestowed 
upon  men  who  were  in  the  ranks  when  he  was  a  leader,  and  whose  ability  was 
no  more  to  be  compared  to  his  than  is  a  bauble  to  a  diamond.  But  his  place  in 
the  honor  and  grateful  recollection  of  the  nation  is  secure. 

Senator  Sherman  was  foremost  in  financial  and  all  other  measures  for  the 
support  of  the  Government,  throughout  the  agony  of  the  civil  war.  He  personally 
recruited  an  Ohio  brigade.  He  was  chairman  of  the  important  Finance  Com- 
mittee for  several  years,  and  in  1877  left  the  Senate  to  enter  the  Cabinet  of 
President  Hayes.  It  was  during  his  administration  of  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment that  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  took  place,  January  i,  1879. 
With  a  foresight  and  skill  that  could  not  be  surpassed,  Secretary  Sherman  had 
made  such  careful  preparations  for  this  important  step  that  when  it  took  place, 
there  was  not  the  slightest  jar  or  friction.  It  was  in  the  natural  order  of  things, 
effect  following  cause  with  perfect  smoothness. 

John  Sherman  re-entered  the  Senate  in  1881,  where  he  remained  a  leader 
respected  alike  by  political  friends  and  foes,  until  1897,  when  he  resigned  his 
seat  in  that  body  to  become  Secretary  of  State  in  President  McKinley's  Cabinet. 
This  position  he  ably  occupied  until  April  25,  189S — the  day  on  which  war  was 
declared  with  Spain — when  he  resigned,  fifteen  days  before  his  seventy-sixth 
birthday,  because  he  considered  the  duties  of  the  office,  in  time  of  war,  too  oner- 
ous for  his  feeble  health  and  advanced  age.     He  died  22nd  of  October,  1900. 


THOMAS   BRACKETT  REED. 


THE  GREAT   "SPEAKER"   AND  DEBATER. 


"How  do  you  mix  youf 
paints  ? ''  timidly  asked  an 
amateur  of  a  distinguished 
artist. 

"With  brains,  sir!" 
thundered  the  master  of  the 
brush. 

And,  as  we  stated  in 
our  sketch  of  Senator  John 
Sherman,  this  is  preemi 
nently  the  truth  in  American 
affairs.  Social  advantagfes, 
wealth  and  the  aid  of  friends 
are  not  without  their  effect, 
but  if  the  element  of  ability 
is  lackinp-,  the  hiohest  sue- 
cess  is  unattainable.  Water 
finds  its  level,  and  the  man 
who  is  thrown  into  the  bust 
ling  arena  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  can  neve* 
attain  the  place  of  leader 
unless  nature  has  furnished 
him  with  ability,  or  in  other 
words,  with  brains. 
No  stronger  proof  can  be  given  of  this  statement  than  is  found  in  the 
career  of  Thomas  Brackett  Reed,  who  was  born  in  Portland,  Maine,  October 
1 8,  1839.  He  attended  the  common  schools  of  the  city,  and  was  graduated  at 
Bowdoin  College  in  i860,  being  among  the  first  in  his  class  and  taking  the 
highest  honors  possible — the  prize  for  excellence  in  English  composition.  He 
possesses  rare  gifts  in  this  respect,  his  writings  showing  a  clear,  vigorous,  but 
limpid  style,  which  have  brought  him  a  national  reputation,  while  his  speeches 


THOMAS    BRACKETT    REED. 


212 


THOMAS  BRACKETT  REED.  213 

are  eloquent,  sparkling,  logical,  and  corru seating  with  humor,  sarcasm,  and  wit. 
No  man  surpasses  him  in  readiness  of  repartee.  No  more  enjoyable  treat  can 
be  imagined  than  that  of  a  debate  in  the  House,  where  he  is  beset  with  all  sorts 
of  questions  from  political  opponents.  His  instant  replies  are  inimitable,  and 
the  man  that  can  unhorse  him  in  debate  has  not  yet  made  his  appearance,  and 
is  not  likely  to  do  so  for  an  indefinite  time  to  come. 

It  was  only  the  other  day  that  a  newspaper  reporter,  while  looking  for 
President  Cleveland,  stepped  to  the  door  of  the  House  restaurant,  and  believ- 
ing he  saw  that  distinguished  personage,  requested  an  attendant  to  bring  him 
to  him  at  the  President's  convenience.  When  the  gentleman  came  forward  it 
proved  to  be  Speaker  Reed. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the  correspondent;  "I  am  looking  for  the 
President  and  mistook  you  for  him." 

"  For  heaven's  sake  don't  let  the  President  learn  of  this,"  said  the 
Speaker,  with  owl-like  gravity;  "he  is  already  vain  enough  of  his  personal 
appearance." 

After  his  graduation,  Mr.  Reed  taught  in  a  Portland  high  school,  studying 
law  at  the  same  time.  He  went  to  California  in  1863,  expecting  to  make  his 
home  in  that  State.  He  taught  school  there  and  began  the  practice  of  law,  but 
at  the  end  of  the  year,  for  family  reasons,  returned  to  Maine.  In  April,  1864, 
he  was  appointed  acting  assistant  paymaster  in  the  United  States  navy  and 
assigned  to  duty  on  the  gunboat  Sibyl,  which  patrolled  the  Tennessee,  Cum- 
berland  and  Mississippi  rivers  until  the  close  of  the  war.  He  was  discharged 
from  the  service  in  August,  1865,  and  returned  to  Portland,  where  he  was 
admitted  to  the  bar. 

His  advance  was  rapid.  He  was  interested  from  the  first  in  politics,  and 
his  power  and  popularity  were  so  marked,  that,  without  his  knowledge,  he  was 
nominated  by  his  party  in  1868,  for  the  State  House  of  Representatives.  His 
election  followed  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  his  reputation  as  a  brilliant  lawyer 
going  with  him,  he  was  placed  on  the  Judiciary  Committee.  Maine  was  quick 
to  see  that  she  had  secured  the  right  man  and  re-elected  him  in  1869,  promot- 
ing him  to  the  Senate  in  1870,  but  he  resigned  the  senatorship  to  assume  the 
duties  of  Attorney  General,  to  which  office  he  had  been  elected.  Mr.  Reed  is 
the  youngest  Attorney  General  that  Maine  ever  had.  He  held  the  office  for 
three  years,  and  added  to  his  fame,  during  which  he  displayed  courage,  con- 
scientiousness and  ability  of  a  high  order. 

He  retired  from  office  in  1873,  and  was  appointed  City  Solicitor  of  Port- 
land, where  his  course  was  marked  by  the  same  devotion  to  duty  that  had  dis- 
tinguished him  when  Attorney  General.  His  name  was  well-known  throughout 
the  State,  and  it  was  in  the  natural  order  of  events,  that,  in  1876,  he  was 
nominated  for  Congress  in  the  district  composed  of  Cumberland  and  York 

I3S&  D 


214  THOMAS  BRACKETT  REED. 

counties.  There  was  the  bitterest  fight  conceivable  against  him,  but  by  his 
indomitable  energy  and  ability,  he  swept  everything  before  him.  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact,  that  during  this  whole  stirring  campaign,  the  sum  total  of  his 
traveling  expenses,  hotel  parlors  for  delegates  and  cost  for  everything,  was 
exactly  ^42.00.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  his  subsequent  nominations 
involved  as  much  as  that  insignificant  sum,  for  every  year  since,  without  a 
single  vote  against  him  in  any  convention,  he  has  been  enthusiastically  renom- 
inated  by  his  constituents.  The  leading  Republican  paper  in  Maine  said  :  *'  Mr. 
Reed  can  represent  his  district  in  Congress  for  the  rest  of  his  natural  life  if  he 
wants  to  ;  there's  no  question  about  that."  His  popularity  made  Mr.  Reed  the 
candidate  before  all  others  of  New  England  for  the  Presidency  in  1896,  beside 
which,  as  has  been  shown,  he  had  myriads  of  supporters  in  all  parts  of  the 
Union. 

Mr.  Reed  took  his  seat  in  Congress,  October  15,  1877,  the  House  having 
been  summoned  in  extra  session  to  pass  the  army  appropriations,  which  had 
failed  at  the  closing  session  of  the  Forty-fourth  Congress.  It  was  a  Democratic 
House  and  remained  in  session  until  the  following  June.  Mr.  Reed  made  his 
first  speech  April  12,  1878,  and  drew  the  attention  of  the  House  by  his  keen, 
convincing  loQfic. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  second  term,  Mr.  Reed's  abilities  were  recognized 
by  his  appointment  as  a  member  of  the  Judiciary  Committee.  His  strength  as  a 
debater  caused  a  number  to  vote  for  him  as  Speaker  in  the  caucus  of  Decem- 
ber, 1 88 1,  and  he  was  made  chairman  of  the  Judiciary  Committee  of  the  House. 
By  that  time,  he  was  the  recognized  leader  on  the  Republican  side.  He  pre- 
pared and  introduced  a  bill  for  the  proper  distribution  of  the  Geneva  award 
against  Great  Britain  for  the  Alabama  claims,  and  his  accompanying  report  con- 
vinced the  House  that  the  bill  was  right  and  led  to  its  passage. 

His  great  ability  was  recognized  by  political  opponents  as  well  as  friends. 
Without  soliciting  a  single  vote,  he  was  unanimously  chosen  in  caucus,  in  1887, 
as  the  Republican  candidate  for  Speaker.  The  House  being  Democratic,  how- 
ever, John  G.  Carlisle  received  the  honor  in  the  Forty-eighth  and  Fiftieth  Con- 
gresses. Reed's  turn  came  in  1889,  when  the  Republicans  had  a  bare  majority, 
and,  on  the  second  ballot  placed  him  in  the  Speaker's  chair,  he  receiving  166 
votes  to  154  cast  for  John  G.  Carlisle. 

There  are  few  who  are  not  acquainted  with  Speaker  Reed's  career  as  pre- 
siding officer  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  For  a  time  indeed  he  was  the 
central  figure  in  the  eyes  of  the  country.  There  were  many  contested  election 
cases  and  the  Democrats  used  every  means  to  obstruct  legislation.  It  was  im- 
possible to  have  every  Republican  in  his  seat  at  all  times,  to  meet  the  constitu- 
tional requirement  that  there  should  be  a  majority  present  to  do  business.  The 
Democrats  refused  to  answer  to  their  names  at  roll  call,  and  the  custom  had 


THOMAS  BRACKETT  REED.  215 

always  been  for  the  Speaker,  under  such  circumstances,  to  declare  no  quorum 
present.  On  January  29,  1890,  when  the  Democrats  had  sat  mute  while  their 
names  were  being-  called  by  the  clerk,  Speaker  Reed  coolly  counted  sufficient 
numbers  "  present  but  not  voting,"  to  constitute  a  quorum. 

It  was  like  a  thunder  clap  from  the  clear  sky.  Pandemonium  was  let 
loose,  and  the  Democrats,  in  a  white  heat  of  rage,  protested  and  declared  the 
proceeding  unconstitutional  and  revolutionary.  The  Speaker,  however,  reso- 
lutely held  to  his  decision  and  the  business  of  the  session  which  had  been 
blocked  so  long  moved  forward,  though  it  cannot  be  said  without  friction.  The 
rule  was  finally  adopted,  February  14,  1890.  It  was  sustained  by  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  four  years  later,  when  a  Democratic  House  was  caught  in  precisely 
the  same  dilemma,  it  adopted  precisely  the  same  rule.  Mr.  Reed  was  chosen 
speaker  again  of  Congress,  in  December,  1895,  ^^  again  in  March,  1897. 

Mr.  Reed  lives  in  a  comfortable  home  at  Portland,  with  his  wife,  the 
daughter  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Merrill,  formerly  pastor  of  a  Congregational  Church 
of  that  city.  He  has  one  daughter,  who,  at  this  writing  is  not  yet  out  of  her 
teens.  He  is  popular  with  his  neighbors,  for  he  is  genial,  pleasant  and  charit- 
able, manly  and  courageous,  and  whenever  he  runs  for  office,  is  certain  to  receive 
a  great  many  Democratic  votes,  for  what  American  can  help  feeling  proud  of 
him?  In  the  words  of  Henry  Hall,  he  is  "in  many  respects  the  greatest  all- 
around  man  in  the  United  States  to-day,  of  stainless  record  and  unimpeachable 
integrity,  bold  but  safe,  brilliant  but  wise,  masterful  but  heeding  counsel,  and  a 
fighter  without  fear." 

At  the  National  Republican  Convention,  which  met  in  St.  Louis  in  1896, 
Mr.  Reed's  name  was  prominently  spoken  of  for  President ;  but  William 
McKinley,  of  Ohio,  was  nominated,  and  the  "  Courtly  Knight  "  from  Maine  sup- 
ported him  in  some  of  the  most  able  speeches  delivered  during  the  campaign. 

On  the  question  of  annexing  the  Hawaiian  Islands  in  1898  the  Speaker  was 
at  marked  variance  with  his  party.  Only  three  Republicans  voted  against  the 
measure.  Prior  to  announcing  the  vote,  Mr.  Dalzell,  who,  in  the  absence  of  Mr. 
Reed,  was  presiding,  said  :  "The  Speaker  of  the  House  is  absent  on  account  of 
illness.  I  am  requested  by  him  to  say  that,  were  he  present,  on  this  proposition 
he  would  vote  *  no.'  " 

This  incident  serves  to  emphasize  Mr.  Reed's  fidelity  to  principle.  He  be- 
lieved it  was  wrong  to  annex  the  islands  without  allowing  the  Hawaiian  people 
to  decide  the  question  by  a  popular  vote  themselves  ;  but,  most  of  all,  he  objected 
to  the  policy  of  inaugurating  this  first  step  in  the  acquirement  of  foreign  terri- 
tory. To  him  it  was  a  portentous  movement,  fraught  with  the  grave  dangers 
which  threatened  to  lead  us  into  foreign  complications  and  policies  that  would 
menace  the  peace  of  our  nation.  This  independent  attitude  made  it  impracti- 
cable for  Mr.  Reed  to  participate  as  actively  in  the  campaign  of  1900  as  he 
had  prevously  done. 


THE   DISTINGUISHED  SENATOR   AND  ABLE   FINANCIER. 
WILLIAM    B.   ALLISON. 

It  is  said  that  Senator  Allison  is  distantly  related  to  President  McKinley 
on  his  mother's  side,  her  maiden  name  being  Nancy  Allison.  It  was  not  on  this 
account,  however,  but  for  the  sterling  worth  of  the  man,  that  President  McKinley 
when  making  up  his  Cabinet  offered  Senator  Allison  the  first  place  in  his  Cab- 
inet, that  of  Secretary  of  State.  But  Mr.  Allison,  as  on  former  occasions  when 
Cabinet  places  have  been  off(jred  to  him,  preferred  to  keep  his  desk  in  the  Sen- 
ate, where  his  duties  were  so  thoroughly  congenial,  and  his  able  services  so 
highly  appreciated,  that  he  could  not  get  his  consent  to  relinquish  them.  It  was 
perhaps  well  for  the  country  that  Mr.  Allison  remained  in  the  Senate,  for  at  tlie 
head  of  the  Finance. Committee  of  that  body  during  the  war  with  Spain  he  was 
in  position  to  render  his  country  most  valuable  service. 

Senator  Allison,  though  for  over  forty  years  a  resident  of  the  State  of  Iowa, 
is  a  native  of  Ohio,  the  commonwealth  which  of  late  years  has  furnished  so 
many  statesmen  to  the  Union.  Some  time  ago,  in  a  chat  with  the  late  General 
Sherman,  he  remarked  to  the  writer  :  "  There's  something  singular  about  Ohio  ; 
she  has  always  a  number  of  leading  men  at  the  front.  Here  at  West  Point,  she 
has  the  largest  number  of  members  in  the  graduating  class,  and  it  has  been  so 
for  years.  The  infusion  of  New  England  blood  into  that  State  seems  to  have 
produced  the  best  sort  of  stock.  General  Grant  was  a  native  of  the  State, 
and,"  added  the  grim  soldier  with  a  smile,  "if  I  wer'n't  such  a  modest  man,  I 
might  add  that  I  also  was  born  there." 

Mr.  Allison  was  born  in  1829,  and  was  graduated  from  the  Western  Re- 
serve College.  His  first  entrance  into  public  politics,  as  he  states,  was  in  i860, 
when  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  tally  secretaries  at  the  convention  which 
nominated  Abraham  Lincoln  for  the  Presidency.  He  was  then  practicing  law  in 
the  little  town  of  Ashland,  near  the  centre  of  the  State,  some  fifteen  miles  from 
where  that  other  famous  son  of  Ohio,  John  Sherman,  was  engaged  in  the  same 
profession.  Allison  had  removed  to  Iowa  in  1857,  where  he  found  himself 
among  many  people  from  Ohio.  It  was  as  a  delegate  from  Iowa  that  he 
attended  the  memorable  convention  which  placed  one  of  the  greatest  Americans 
that  ever  lived  in  nomination  for  the  Presidency. 

"I  sat  right  in  front  of  George  Ashmun,  of  Massachusetts,"  said  Senator 
Allison.  '*  He  was  president  of  the  convention,  and  I  believe  that  I  gave  him  the 
first  news  of  Lincoln's  nomination.  I  kept  footing  up  the  figures  as  they  came 
216 


WILLIAM  B.   ALLISON. 


2ir 


in,  and  some  time  before  the  members  of  the  convention  were  aware  of  tht: 
fact,  I  saw  that  Lincoln  would  be  successful,  and  I  turned  about  and  told  Mr. 
Ashmun  of  the  fact.  A  few  minutes  later  the  convention  realized  it,  and  then 
ensued  one  of  the  most  wonderful  scenes  in  our  history.  The  convention  was 
held  in  the  old  wigwam  in  Chicago,  and  there  were  about  ten  thousand  people 
present.  When  the  vote  was  announced  a  scream  went  up  from  thousands  of 
throats  and  fully  one  thousand  hats  were  thrown  into  the  air.  It  rained  hats  for 
several  minutes  after  the  an- 
nouncement, and  I  can  still 
see  the  hats  rising  and  fall- 
ing. The  people  lost  control 
of  themselves,  and  I  have 
often  wondered  what  became 
of  those  hats,  for  there  was 
not  much  possibility  of  re- 
covering your  hat  in  a  mob 
like  that." 

Although  Mr.  Allison 
was  deeply  interested  in  poli- 
tics from  the  first,  and  always 
inclined  to  the  principles  of 
the  Republican  party,  he  felt 
no  special  ambition  to  be- 
come a  politician.  Never- 
theless, his  neighbors  appre- 
ciated his  ability,  and  he  was 
nominated  for  Congress  in 
1862.  Samuel  J.  Kirk  wood 
was  then  governor  of  Iowa 
and  Allison  was  on  his  staff. 
Being  directed  to  raise 
troops  for  the  armies  in  the 
field,     he     orofanized     three 

regiments  in  North  Iowa  in  1861,  but  was  attacked  by  a  serious  illness  which 
laid  him  up  for  a  year.  As  soon  as  he  recovered,  he  set  to  work  again  and 
raised  three  more  regiments.  He  was  then  nominated  for  Congress  by  the 
conservative  element  of  the  Republican  party.  His  opponent  was  a  Demo- 
cratic editor  of  so  pronounced  secession  proclivities  that  he  was  in  jail  by 
orders  of  the  aggressive  Secretary  Stanton.  Thus  the  issue  was  a  straight 
one  between  the  friends  and  enemies  of  the  Union. 

Had  all  of  Iowa's  citizens  been  at  home,  Mr.  Allison  would  not  have  felt 


WILLIAM    B.    ALLISON. 


2i8  WILLIAM  B.   ALLISON. 

the  slightest  misgiving  as  to  the  result,  but  the  majority  of  the  Iowa  soldiers  in 
the  field  were  Republicans.  In  this  dilemma,  Allison  persuaded  Governor 
Kirkwood  to  call  an  extra  session  of  the  Legislature,  which  passed  a  law  allow- 
ing the  soldiers  at  the  front  to  vote.  Three  commissioners  were  sent  thither, 
the  result  being  that  Allison  was  triumphantly  elected.  The  same  system  of 
soldier  voting  was  afterward  adopted  by  other  States  in  the  North.  Mr.  Allison 
remained  in  Congress  until  1871,  and  two  years  later  was  elected  to  the  Senate, 
where  he  has  remained  ever  since,  being  re-elected,  as  already  stated,  in  1896. 

From  his  first  entrance  into  politics.  Senator  Allison  has  been  profoundly 
Interested  in  financial  matters,  and  there  is  no  higher  authority  on  that  question 
than  he.  He  was  early  appointed  a  member  of  the  Appropriation  Committee. 
His  seat  was  near  that  of  Congressman  Garfield  and  he  became  the  intimate  and 
trusted  friend  of  him  and  of  Blaine.  Despite  his  friendship  for  Mr.  Blaine,  he 
was  also  the  valued  associate  of  the  most  bitter  opponents  of  the  Maine  states- 
man.    This  was  a  tribute  indeed  to  the  worth  and  ability  of  Allison. 

President  Garfield  was  so  impressed  by  Allison's  attainments  and  complete 
mastery  of  financial  questions,  that,  in  the  face  of  the  strongest  pressure  from 
other  quarters,  he  urged  him  to  accept  the  portfolio  of  the  Treasury.  Allison 
would  have  done  so,  for  the  post  would  have  been  a  congenial  one  to  him,  had 
it  not  been  for  the  delicate  state  of  his  wife's  health.  She  was  a  brilliant  and 
accomplished  woman,  but  was  an  invalid  whose  existence  depended  upon  her  liv- 
ing a  quiet,  restful  life.  Because  of  this,  the  affectionate  husband  declined  the 
offer.  The  nervous  malady  of  his  wife  became  intensified,  and  some  time  later, 
when  she  had  become  a  victim  to  melancholia,  sad  to  say,  she  took  her  own  life. 

Mr.  Allison  enjoys  splendid  health,  and  is  in  the  prime  of  his  mental  powers. 
His  ey«  is  bright,  his  complexion  ruddy,  and  the  iron-gray  hair  abundant.  He 
is  a  handsome  man,  genial  and  fond  of  a  good  story,  and  he  can  tell  one  and 
join  in  the  ringing  laughter  which  greets  a  witticism.  He  is  fond  of  books,  art 
and  travel,  and  is  almost  as  familiar  with  the  politics  of  Europe  as  with  those  of 
his  own  country.  He  is  dignified  and  kindly  without  a  trace  of  egotism  or 
vanity.  Senator  Gear  of  Iowa,  said  of  him:  "There  is  nothing  of  a  coward 
about  Allison.  He  is  cautious,  but  not  cowardly.  He  has  a  stiff  back-bone  in 
him,  and  when  the  occasion  demands,  he  always  shows  that  he  has  convictions 
and  the  courage  to  support  them.  He  has  been  in  public  life  for  a  generation, 
and  although  he  is  about  seventy  years  old,  he  looks  more  than  ten  years 
younger  and  in  the  prime  of  physical  condition." 

When  he  had  been  in  public  life  for  a  generation,  and  when  an  old  man, 
he  bore  himself  with  the  vigor  and  alertness  of  youth,  doing  his  work  with 
ability  and  dispatch. 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

LEADER  OF  THE  FAMOUS  ROUGH-RIDERS. 


"  Theodore  Roosevelt  is 
Andrew  Jackson  educated," 
said  a  prominent  man,  while 
the  hero  of  the  Rough-Riders 
was  making  the  race  for  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State  of  New 
York  in  October,  1898. 

No  man  of  his  age  in 
America  has  been  a  more  un- 
compromising reformer  or 
washed  a  more  relentless  war- 
fare  against  corrupt  and  de- 
signing public  officials.  Both 
in  public  and  private,  he  has 
been  always  the  staunch,  fear- 
less champion  of  the  right. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  is  a  native 
of  New  York  City,  where  he 
was  born  October  27,  1858. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen 
young  Roosevelt  entered  Har- 
vard College,  where  he  gradu- 
ated in  1880,  shortly  before  he 
was  twenty-two  years  of  age, 
after  which  he  went  abroad  and 
continued  his  studies  for  a  time  in  Dresden,  traveled  in  Europe  and  in  Asia, 
and  at  the  age  of  twenty-three  returned  to  New  York  and  studied  law  under 
his  uncle,  Robert   B.  Roosevelt,  but  soon  abandoned  it  for  politics. 

In  1882,  when  the  members  of  the  General  Assembly  met  at  Albany, 
Theodore  Roosevelt  went  as  the  representative  of  his  district.  He  was  the 
youngest  member  of  the  Legislature,  but  he  soon  made  himself  what  he  has 
been  ever  since — a  storm  centre.  Within  two  months  he  had  studied  his 
colleagues  and  divided  them  into  two  classes — the  good  and  the  bad — and,  to 

219 


THEODORE   ROOSEVELT. 


220  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

the  astonishment  of  the  latter,  opened  an  uncompromising  war,  with  himself 
the  leader  of  the  incorruptible  minority.  The  antagonistic  press  lampooned 
him  without  mercy  as  "an  egotistical  popinjay."  However,  he  knew  it  was 
right  to  fight  and  expose  corruption,  and  his  courage  faltered  not  once.  He 
was  re-elected  twice.  The  reforms  which  his  aggressive  daring  effected  during 
his  three  terms  saved  the  public  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  annually. 

In  1889  President  Harrison  appointed  the  dauntless  young  reformer 
President  of  the  United  States  Civil  Service  Commission,  which  position  he 
filled  for  six  years,  four  of  them  under  President  Cleveland,  who,  recognizing 
his  ability,  courage,  and  sterling  integrity,  continued  him  in  that  office. 

In  1895,  after  the  Parkhurst  crusade  against  corrupt  administration  in 
New  York  City,  which  resulted  in  the  overthrow  of  a  municipal  ring  by  the 
election  of  Mayor  Strong,  Roosevelt  was  chosen  to  head  the  Board  of  Police 
Commissioners  and  enforce  the  principles  of  reform.  Within  a  month  he  was 
at  once  the  most  hated  and  the  best  beloved  man  in  New  York  City. 

When  the  Cuban  war  began  to  excite  this  country  intensely  in  1897,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  remarked  to  a  friend,  "  We  shall  be  compelled  to  fight  Spain  before 
a  year  passes."  It  was  this  belief  that  induced  him  to  give  up  the  position  in 
the  New  York  Police  Department  and  accept  the  Assistant  Secretaryship  of 
the  Navy  when  it  was  offered  to  him  by  President  McKinley  in  1897.  His 
first  work  was  to  ascertain  the  needs  of  the  navy.  He  put  through  a  measure 
to  get  every  American  war-vessel  in  fighting  trim,  and  to  fill  every  foreign 
coaling  station  with  a  supply  of  fuel.  It  was  this  which  enabled  Dewey  to 
move  so  promptly  from  Hong  Kong  to  Manila,  and  it  was  Roosevelt  who 
uro-ed  the  sending  of  the  dispatch  instructing  the  Admiral  to  capture  or 
destroy  the  Spanish  fleet  at  Manila  immediately  upon  the  declaration  of  war. 
Six  days  after  Dewey's  victory  Mr.  Roosevelt  resigned  his  portfolio  in  the 
Navy  Department  and  organized  the  now  famous  Rough  Riders  (Seventy-first 
New  York  Cavalry),  composed  of  cowboys,  policemen,  and  rich  young  society 
men — all  good  horsemen,  good  shots,  and  full  of  courage. 

When  at  home,  he  lives  in  a  comfortable,  roomy  house  with  pleasant 
grounds  surrounding  it,  on  Oyster  Bay,  Long  Island.  He  married  Miss  Edith 
K.  Carow  in  18S6,  and  has  six  children,  four  boys  and  two  girls.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt is  a  man  of  comfortable  fortune,  but  he  delights  in  constant  employment. 
His  literary  work  entitles  him  to  renown,  though  one  hardly  misses  the  time  in 
which  he  did  it  from  the  stirring  scenes  of  public  life.  In  1900  the  Republican 
Convention  at  Philadelphia  unanimously  nominated  him  for  Vice  President. 

Governor  Roosevelt  is  a  thorough  Republican  in  principle  ;  but  he  is  a 
patriot  before  a  partisan.  "  Be  sure  you  are  right  and  then  go  ahead,"  has 
been  no  man's  motto  more  than  Theodore  Roosevelt's  in  all  his  past  public 
acts  ;  and,  in  the  pursuit  of  the  course  of  right,  as  he  saw  it,  for  the  public  good, 


THE  DISTINGUISHED  TARIFF  REFORM  LEADER  AND  WAR  PRESIDENT. 
WILLIAM    McKINLEY. 

When  William  McKinley  was  inaugurated  the  twenty-fifth  President  of  the 

United  States  of  America,  March  4,  1S97,  he  took  his  seat  amid  troublous  times. 

Cuba's  cry  of  oppression   and   starvation   for  three  years  had  been  wafted  on 

every  breeze  from  the  South,  pleading  to   our  country  for  succor.      Congress 

and  the  Senate  were  wrought  up  almost  if  not  quite  to  the  point  of  recognizing 

;    the   Cuban   insurgents.     On   the  other   hand,   the   Monroe    Doctrine   and    the 

I    admonitions  of  Washington  bade  us  refrain  from  interfering  in  foreign  difficulties. 

I    McKinley  respected  these  injunctions  and  adhered  to  them  even  to  the  point  of 

I     rendering  himself  unpopular  with  his  party  and  with  the  country,  wisely  fighting 

j    against  all  rash  acts  on  the  part  of  the  Government  and  using  every  effort  in  his 

I    power  to  bring  about  a  peaceful  settlement  between  Spain  and  Cuba,  remitting 

I    not  until  Spain  herself,  arrogantly  refusing  all  overtures,  forced  the  United  States 

I    into  the  conflict.     The  story  of  this  conflict  and  the  admiration  and  love  which 

I     McKinley   inspired   in   the   hearts  of  his  countrymen    by  his  patriotic  and  wise 

administration  during  the  same  are  too  fresh  in  the  minds  of  all  readers  to  need 

I    repeating  here.     It  is  with  McKinley  the  man  that  this  short  sketch  must  deal. 

I  William     McKinley,    Jr.,    was    born    in   Niles,  Trumbull    County,    Ohio, 

i    Jan-     29,    1843.      His  father   was    a  German    by  birth    and    lived    to    his   85th 

:    year,  his  mother,  of  Scotch  descent,  being  still  alive  at  this  writing.     William 

I    was  the  third  son.     The  eldest,  David,  is  a  resident  of  San  Francisco,  where, 

until  1894,  he  was   the  Hawaiian  Consul   General  to  the  United  States.     The 

second  son,  James,  died  a  few  years  ago,  and  Abner,  younger  than  William,  is 

I    engaged  in  business  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

I  When  five  years  old,  William  attended  the  village  school  at  Niles,  continu- 

j  ing  his  studies  at  a  more  advanced  school  at  Poland,  whither  his  parents  removed 
j  in  order  to  obtain  better  educational  advantages  for  their  children.  When  not 
!  quite  sixteen,  William  was  sent  to  the  Allegheny  College  at  Meadville,  Pa.,  but 
i  fell  ill  and  had  to  return  home.  When  he  recovered,  he  began  teaching  school, 
j  receiving  ^25  a  month  and  "boarding  around."  He  was  thus  engaged,  when 
the  country  was  thrilled  by  the  news  that  Fort  Sumter  had  been  fired  upon. 
Instantly  the  pale-faced,  gray-eyed  student,  flung  aside  his  books  and  enlisted  as 

223 


224 


WILLI  A  31  McKINILEY,  JR. 


a  private  in  the  war  for  the  Union.  It  was  patriotism  of  the  loftiest  nature  which 
inspired  the  young  teacher.  He  was  mustered  in  at  Columbus  in  June,  by- 
General  John  C.  Fremont,  who  thumped  the  young  man's  chest,  looked  in  his 
clear  eye,  and  surveying  him  from  head  to  foot  said :  "  You'll  do  !" 

Young  McKinley  was  attached  to  the  Twenty-third  Ohio  Volunteer 
Infantry,  and  remainded  with  it  to  the  close  of  the  war.  During  that 
period,  he  served    on  the  staff  of   Brigadier  General   Rutherford  B.   Hayes, 

afterwards  President  of  the 
United  States,  on  the  staff 
of  the  famous  Indian  fighter, 
General  Crook,  and  sub- 
sequently on  that  of  Briga- 
dier General  Hazen.  He 
was  in  all  the  eno-aofements 
in  which  his  regiment  took 
part,  and  was  made  a  second 
lieutenant  directly  after  the 
I  battle  of  Antietam,  upon  the 
urgent  recommendation  of 
General  Hayes.  He  became 
first  lieutenant,  February  7, 
1863,  captain,  July  25,  1864, 
and  was  breveted  major  by 
President  Lincoln  for  gallant 
conduct  on  the  fields  of 
Opequan,  Fisher's  Hill  and 
Cedar  Creek,  being  mus- 
tered out  with  his  regiment, 
in  July,  1865. 

Thus    at    the    age    of 

twenty-two.  Major  McKinley 

was  a  fire-tried  veteran  of  the 
war  for  the   Union,   with    a 
record  to  which  he  can  always  refer  with  patriotic  pride. 

But  the  war  was  over,  the  Union  restored,  and  the  modest  young  man, 
without  pausing  to  boast  of  his  deeds,  entered  upon  the  study  of  law.  He  was, 
graduated  from  the  Albany  (N.  Y.)  Law  School,  and  settling  in  the  little  town 
of  Canton,  Ohio,  waited  for  his  clients  to  come  to  him.  They  straggled  thither, 
and  fortunate  were  all  who  secured  the  services  of  the  brilliant,  conscientious, 
and  learned  lawyer.  His  ability  attracted  the  attention  of  Judge  Belden,  who 
invited  him  to  a  partnership  with  him,  and  the  connection  lasted  until  the  death 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY. 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY,  JR.  225 

of  the  Judge  in  1870.  His  townsmen  showed  their  appreciation  of  the  youno- 
man  by  electing  him,  in  1869,  prosecuting  attorney  of  Stark  county,  an  office 
which  he  held  for  a  number  of  yours.  He  had  already  established  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  powerful  jury  lawyer  and  one  of  the  best  speakers  in  the  State. 

At  the  age  of  thirty-three,  the  people  of  his  district  elected  him  their  repre- 
sentative in  Congress,  his  re-election  following  until  1890,  when,  through  the 
gerrymandering  of  his  district,  he  was  defeated  by  a  small  majority.  From 
January,  1892  to  January,  1894,  and  again  until  January,  1896,  he  was  Governor 
of  Ohio,  his  election  being  among  the  most  notable  triumphs  of  his  career. 

While  in  Congress,  McKinley  was  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Revision 
of  Laws,  the  Judiciary  Committee,  the  Committee  on  Expenditures  in  the  Post 
Office  Department,  and  the  Committee  on  Rules.  Upon  the  nomination  of 
General  Garfield  for  the  Presidency,  McKinley  took  his  place  on  the  Committee 
on  Ways  and  Means,  serving  with  the  committee  for  the  rest  of  his  time  in 
Congress.  It  was  while  he  was  chairman  that  he  framed  the  "  McKinley  Bill," 
which  still  bears  his  name.  This  tariff  act  became  law,  October  i,  1890,  and 
provided  for  a  high  rate  of  duty  on  an  immense  number  of  articles  imported 
from  foreign  countries,  but  made  sugar  free.  Its  purpose  was  to  reduce  the 
national  revenue  and  to  increase  protection. 

The  work  involved  in  the  preparation  of  this  bill  is  almost  inconceivable. 
It  contained  thousands  of  items  and  covered  every  interest  in  the  country.  For 
four  weeks,  while  the  House  was  in  session,  he  was  almost  constantly  upon  his 
feet,  answering  numberless  questions,  meeting  objections  and  giving  informa- 
tion. With  the  exception  of  two  minor  amendments,  it  passed  exactly  as  it 
came  from  the  hands  of  the  committee. 

A  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Press  thus  describes  the  man  :  "  Quiet, 
dignified,  modest,  considerate  of  others,  ever  mindful  of  the  long  service  of  the 
veterans  of  his  party,  true  as  steel  to  his  friends,  unhesitating  at  the  call  of 
duty,  no  matter  what  the  personal  sacrifice  ;  unwavering  in  his  integrity,  full  of 
tact  in  overcoming  opposition,  yet  unyielding  on  vital  party  principles,  with  a 
heart  full  of  sympathy  for  those  who  toil,  a  disposition  unspoiled  by  success  and  a 
private  life  as  spotless  as  self  sacrificing,  he  stands  before  the  American  people 
to-day  as  one  of  the  finest  types  of  courageous,  persevering,  vigorous,  and 
developing  manhood  that  the  Republic  has  ever  produced." 

A  peculiar  proof  of  Major  McKinley's  exalted  sense  of  honor  was  given 
at  the  dead-lock  in  the  presidential  convention  of  1888.  A  movement  on  the 
fourth  ballot  suddenly  set  in  in  his  favor,  which  could  have  been  readily  turned 
into  a  stampede.  But  he  was  there  as  the  pledged  friend  of  Senator  John 
Sherman,  and  nothing  could  swerve  him  from  his  allegiance.  He  checked  the 
movement  at  its  beofinninof,  and  those  who  would  have  tempted  him  turned 
back  at   sicrht  of  that  earnest  countenance  and  at  the  rmging  tones  ot    that 


226  CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW. 

eloquent  voice.  Almost  precisely  the  same  thing  was  repeated  four  years  later 
at  Minneapolis,  when  the  nomination  would  have  assuredly  gone  to  him,  had 
he  not  peremptorily  checked  it,  and  ordered  the  delegates  from  his  own  state 
to  vote  as  they  had  been  instructed. 

A  man  like  Major  McKinley  could  not  fail  to  make  an  ideal  husband, 
when  blessed  as  he  is  with  an  ideal  wife.  Both  of  their  children  died  in  infancy, 
and  the  wife  is  an  invalid,  but  though  their  silver  wedding  was  celebrated  in 
January,  1896,  no  lovers  were  ever  more  chivalrously  devoted  to  each  other 
than  are  they,  now  that  they  have  reached  the  meridian  of  life.  Major 
McKinley  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency  by  the  National  Republican 
Convention  held  at  St.  Louis  in  June,  1896,  and  the  following  November  was 
elected  President  of  the  United  States  by  a  magnificent  majority.  The  chief 
issues  of  the  campaign  were  the  maintenance  of  the  Gold  Standard  and  the 
protection  of  American  industries. 

President  McKinley's  administration  was  a  success  from  the  beginning. 
Lack  of  confidence  which  pervaded  the  country  during  three  years  of  the  pre- 
vious administration  was  quickly  dispelled.  Business  rapidly  revived  under 
the  new  Dingley  Tariff  Bill,  which  was  the  first  important  act  of  the  new 
administration.  The  most  important  event  of  his  administration  was  the  war 
with  Spain,  which  began  in  April,  1898,  and  was  successfully  terminated  in  the 
summer  of  the  same  year,  and  thereby  Spanish  sovereignty  in  this  hemisphere 
was  ended,  and  by  the  provisions  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace,  the  Philippine  and 
Porto  Rican  Islands  were  added  to  the  territory  of  the  United  States. 

On  June  21,  1900,  Mr.  McKinley  was  again  nominated  for  the  presidency 
by  the  Republican  Convention  which  met  at  Philadelphia. 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW 

THE  APOSTLE  OF  SUNSHINE  AND  CHEERFULNESS 
Chauncey  Mitchell  Depew  was  born  at  Peekskill,  N.  Y.,  April  23,  1834. 
His  remote  ancestors  were  French  Huguenots,  who  founded  New  Rochelle,  in 
West-chester  county.  His  father,  Isaac  Depew,  was  a  prominent  and  highly 
esteemed  citizen  of  Peekskill,  and  his  mother,  Martha  Mitchell,  was  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  distinguished  New  England  family,  one  of  whose  members, 
Roger  Sherman,  was  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independenee. 

Chauncey  spent  his  boyhood  in  Peekskill,  where  he  prepared  for  college. 
He  was  a  bright  student,  and  at  the  age  of  eighteen  entered  Yale  College, 
from  which  he  was  graduated  in  1856,  with  one  of  the  first  honors  of  his  class. 
In  June,  1887,  Yale  conferred  upon  him  the  degree  of  LL.  D.  It  will  be  noted 
that  Mr.  Depew  reached  his  majority  at  about  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the 
Republican  party.     Although  of  Democratic  antecedents,  he  had  been  a  close . 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL   DEPEW. 


227 


student  of  politics  and  his   sympathies  were  with  the  aims  of  the  new  political 
organization,  to  which  he  speedily  gave  his  allegiance. 

Mr.  Depew  studied  law  in  his  native  village,  and  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  in  1858.  In  the  same  year,  he  was  elected  as  a  delegate  to  the 
Republican  State  convention,  this  being  an  acknowledgment  of  the  interest 
he  had  taken  in  the  party,  and  the  skill  and  energy  he  had  shown  in 
advocating  its  policy.  He  began  the  practice  of  law  in  1859,  and  was  hio-hly 
successful  from  the  first. 
Few  men  of  the  present  day 
are  so  gifted  with  eloquence, 
wit,  and  the  power  of  giving 
an  instant  and  happy  turn  to 
the  most  unexpected  inter- 
ruptions or  occurrences.  In 
his  early  manhood,  his  strik- 
ing power  as  a  stump 
speaker,  his  readiness  at  re- 
partee, and  his  never  failing 
good  humor,  made  him  a 
giant  in  politics,  to  which  he 
was  literally  forced  to  give 
attention.  But  with  all  these 
extraordinary  gifts,  he  could 
launch  the  thunderbolts  of 
invective  against  wrong  and 


stir  the  profoundest  depths 
of  emotion  by  his  appeals. 
He  loved  liberty  and  hated 
oppression,  and  has  always 
believed  that  the  United 
States  of  America  is  the 
happiest  and  greatest  coun- 
try upon  which  the  sun  ever 
shone.     His  patriotic  speeches  are  models  of  eloquence  and  power. 

In  i860,  he  took  the  stump  for  Abraham  Lincoln  and  added  greatly  to  his 
reputation  as  a  ready,  forceful  and  brilliant  pleader  for  that  which  he  believed  to 
be  right.  No  speaker  was  so  welcome  as  he  to  his  audience,  whether  composed 
of  scholars,  of  business  men,  or  of  the  uneducated  masses.  He  was  sure  to  say 
something  entertaining,  something  instructive  and  something  worth  remember- 
ing. He  was  never  dull;  he  was  logical  and  luminous,  and  no  matter  how 
lengthy  his  addresses,  he  was  sure  to  be  greeted  with  cries  of  "  Go  on  !  go  on  !  " 


CHAUNCEY   MITCHELL   DEPEW. 


228  CHAUNCEY  Mitchell  Mp^iv. 

at  their  conclusion.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  he  contributed  much  to  the  suc« 
cess  of  that  memorable  election. 

In  1 86 1,  Mr.  Depew  was  nominated  for  the  Assembly  in  the  Third  West- 
chester County  District,  and  although  the  constituency  was  largely  Democratic, 
he  was  elected  by  a  handsome  majority.  He  fully  met  all  the  high  expectations 
formed,  and  was  re-elected  in  1862.  By  his  geniality,  wit,  integrity  and  courtesy 
he  became  as  popular  among  his  political  opponents  as  among  his  friends.  He 
was  made  his  party's  candidate  for  Secretary  of  State,  directly  after  the  Demo- 
crats had  won  a  notable  triumph  by  the  election  of  Horatio  Seymour  as  gov- 
ernor ;  but  by  his  dash  and  brilliancy  and  his  prodigious  endurance  (he  spoke 
twice  a  day  for  six  weeks),  he  secured  a  majority  of  30,000.  So  admirably  did 
he  perform  the  duties  of  the  office  that  he  was  offered  a  renomination,  but 
declined. 

During  the  administration  of  President  Johnson,  Secretary  of  State  Seward 
appointed  Mr.  Depew  Minister  to  Japan,  but  after  consideration,  the  offer  was 
declined.  He  seemed  to  have  decided  to  withdraw  from  politics  and  to  devote 
his  time  and  energies  to  his  profession.  That  shrewd  railway  man  and  financier, 
Commodore  Vanderbilt,  had  watched  the  career  of  Depew,  and  had  formed  a 
strong  admiration  for  him,  while  the  eldest  son,  William  H.  Vanderbilt,  became 
his  firm  friend.  In  1866,  Mr.  Depew  was  appointed  the  attorney  of  the  New 
York  and  Harlem  Railroad  Company,  and  three  years  later,  when  that  road  was 
consolidated  with  the  New  York  Central,  he  was  made  the  attorney  of  the  new 
organization,  being  afterward  elected  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Directors. 

As  other  and  extensive  roads  were  added  to  the  system.  Mr.  Depew  in 
1875,  was  promoted  to  be  general  counsel  for  them  all,  and  elected  to  a  direc- 
torship in  each  of  the  numerous  organizations.  The  year  previous,  the  legisla- 
ture had  made  him  Regent  of  the  State  University,  and  one  of  the  Commission- 
ers to  build  the  Capitol  at  Albany. 

In  1884,  the  United  States  senatorship  was  tendered  to  Mr.  Depew,  but  he 
was  committed  to  so  many  business  and  professional  trusts  that  he  felt  compelled 
to  decline  the  honor.  Two  years  before,  William  H.  Vanderbilt  had  retired  from 
the  presidency  of  the  New  York  Central,  and  in  the  reorganization  Mr.  Depew 
was  made  second  Vice-President.  The  President,  Mr.  Rutter,  died  in  1885,  and 
Mr.  Depew  was  elected  to  the  presidency,  which  office  he  still  holds. 

His  previous  experience  had  made  him  thoroughly  familiar  with  all  the  in- 
tricacies and  minutiae  of  the  immense  business,  its  policy,  its  relations  with  other 
corporations,  its  rights,  responsibilities  and  limitations,  and  none  was  so  well 
equipped  for  the  responsible  post  as  he.  "The  basilar  fact  in  Mr.  Depew's 
character  is  a  profound  and  accurate  judgment,  and  this  asserts  itself  in  all  his 
manifold  relations  with  men  and  affairs,  and  in  every  effort  he  puts  forth  in  any 
direction.     Practical  common  sense,  tact,  an  exquisite  sense  of  the  proprieties,  a 


CHAUNCEY  MITCHELL  DEPEW. 

229 

singular  aptitude  for  business,  and  an  intuitive  appreciation  of  the  value  of 
means  with  reference  to  their  ends,  are  manifestations  of  this  judgment  ;  and  if 
we  add  a  strong  will,  great  executive  ability,  untiring  industry,  and  instinctive 
love  of  order,  and  a  readiness  to  adopt  the  best  method,  an  intellect  of  astonish- 
ing range  and  remarkable  promptness  in  the  solution  of  intricate  problems,  we 
have  a  correct  estimate  of  the  qualities  which  place  him  in  the  first  rank  of  rail- 
way managers." 

At  the  National  Republican  convention  of  1888,  New  York  voted  solidly 
for  Mr,  Depew  as  its  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  but  he  withdrew  his  name. 
At  the  convention  at  Minneapolis  in  1892,  he  was  selected  to  present  the  name 
of  President  Harrison,  and  made  one  of  the  best  speeches  of  his  life.  When 
Mr.  Blaine  resigned  as  Secretary  of  State,  President  Harrison  urged  Mr.  Depew 
to  accept  the  place,  but  after  a  week's  deliberation,  he  felt  obliged  to  decline  the 
honor. 

It  is  impossible  in  a  sketch  like  this  to  do  justice  to  the  remarkable  versa- 
tility of  Mr.  Depew.  His  admirable  addresses  would  fill  several  bulky  volumes. 
As  an  after  dinner  speaker,  he  is  without  a  peer,  and  his  wit,  logic  and  eloquence 
never  fail  him.  Dr.  Depew's  counsel  and  oratory  were  much  sought  and 
effectively  used  in  the  interest  of  the  Republican  Party  during  the  stirring  cam- 
paigns of  1896  and  1900  between  William  Jennings  Bryan  and  William 
McKinley. 


WILLIAM   JENNINGS    BRYAN, 

THE   DEMOCRATIC   CANDIDATE   FOR   PRESIDENT  IN   1896. 

William  Jennings  Bryan,  of  Lincoln,  Neb.,  who  is  sometimes  known  as 
"  the  Boy  Orator  of  the  Platte,"  is  a  native  of  Illinois.  He  was  born  in  Salem, 
Marion  County,  in  that  State,  March  19,  i860.  His  father,  Silas  L.  Bryan,  a 
native  of  Culpepper  County,  Virginia,  was  a  prominent  and  respected  lawyer, 
who  represented  his  district  for  eight  years  in  the  State  Senate,  and  later  was  a 
Circuit  Court  Judge  for  twelve  years. 

The  son  entered  the  Illinois  College  at  Jacksonville  in  1877,  and  completed 
the  classical  course,  eraduatine  with  honors  in  1881.  He  later  attended  a  law 
school  in  Chicago,  working  in  the  late  Lyman  Trumbull's  law  ofihce  in  order  to 
pay  his  way  through  college.  He  began  the  practice  of  his  profession  at  Jack- 
sonville, 111.,  but  in  1887  he  removed  to  Lincoln,  Neb.,  establishing  a  law  partner- 
ship with  one  of  his  college  classmates.     From  his  earliest  years  he  had  a  fancy 


230 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


for  public  speaking,  which  developed  his  oratorical  powers.  In  1880  he  won 
second  prize  as  the  representative  of  Illinois  College  in  the  State  collegiate  ora- 
torical contest.  He  was  valedictorian  of  his  college  class,  and  came  within  one 
vote  of  being  elected  to  the  same  position  in  the  Law  School.  From  1880  on 
he  spoke  in  political  campaigns. 

Bryan  supported  J.  Sterling  Morton  for  Congress  in  1880,  but  the  man  who 

was  later  to  be  Mr.  Cleve- 
land's Secretary  of  Agricul- 
ture was  defeated  at  the  polls 
t>y  3,500  votes.  Next  time, 
in  1890,  Bryan  took  the  nomi- 
nation and  ran  against  the 
same  Republican  who  had 
so  badly  defeated  Mr.  Mor- 
ton. Bryan  had  much  better 
luck.  He  challenged  his 
adversary  to  a  series  of  joint 
debates,  and  made  so  bril- 
liant a  showing  that  he  car- 
ried the  district,  which  had 
given  the  Republicans  3,500 
majority  two  years  before,  by 
a  majority  of  6,700  votes. 
The  fame  he  gained  in  the 
joint  debates,  of  which  the 
tariff  was  the  theme,  induced 
Speaker  Crisp  to  appoint 
Bryan  on  the  Ways  and 
Means  Committee,  an  honor 
which  fewCongressmen  have 
ever  won  durinor  their  first 

o 

term  in  the  House.  On  March 
12,  1892,  he  scored  his  first  great  oratorical  success  with  a  speech  on  free  wool. 
This  deliverance  led  Mr.  Kilgore  to  declare  it  the  best  speech  made  on  the  floor 
of  the  House  for  ten  years,  and  Mr.  Culberson  to  remark  that  it  was  one  of  the 
ablest  addresses  he  had  ever  listened  to. 

In  1894  Bryan  was  nominated  for  United  States  Senator  by  the  Democratic 
Convention  of  Nebraska.  He  made  a  vigorous  canvass  of  his  State,  but  the  Re- 
publicans secured  the  legislature,  and  Mr.  Thurston  was  elected.  During  the 
two  years  between  this  time  and  the  Chicago  Convention  of  1896,  Mr.  Bryan 
devoted  his  time  to  lecturing  on  financial  topics,  advocating  the  free  coinage  of 
silver  at  the  ratio  of  16  to  i. 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRVAi.. 


WILLIAM  J.  BRYAN.  231 

During  the  famous  Democratic  Convention  at  Chicago  in  July,  1896,  Mr. 
Bryan  was  given  the  opportunity  to  close  the  debate  on  the  platform.  The 
brilliant  speech  which  he  made  on  this  occasion  electrified  the  Convention,  and 
secured  him  the  nomination  for  President  of  the  United  States.  He  was 
afterwards  nominated  by  the  National  (Silver)  Republican  Party  and  also  by 
the  People's  Party. 

The  campaign  which  followed  was  remarkable  beyond  precedent.  It  is 
doubtful  if  during  the  days  of  slavery  agitation  there  was  ever  so  general  and 
so  intense  interest  taken  in  a  presidential  election. 

Mr.  Bryan,  departing  from  the  usual  custom  of  presidential  candidates,  made 
a  personal  canvass.  The  influential  press  of  the  country  was  against  him  on 
account  of  his  views  on  the  money  question.  He  knew  his  hope  of  success  lay 
in  getting  at  the  people  and  speaking  to  them  personally.  Within  about  ninety 
days  he  traveled  over  almost  the  entire  country  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
covering  18,831  miles,  visiting  477  cities,  in  which  he  delivered  by  actual  count 
600  speeches.  For  the  entire  time — excepting  Sundays,  when  he  always  rested — 
his  daily  average  was  about  275  miles  traveled,  five  towns  visited,  and  six  speeches 
delivered.  No  public  speaker  ever  approached  such  a  feat  of  endurance,  or 
spoke  so  often  or  to  so  many  people  in  the  same  length  of  time. 

When  it  was  determined  that  McKinley  was  elected — he  receiving 
7,104,779  and  Bryan  6,502,925  of  the  popular  vote — Mr.  Bryan  accepted  his 
defeat  without  apparent  discouragement,  and  with  that  admirable  characteristic 
Americanism  which  does  what  it  can  when  it  can't  do  what  it  prefers  to,  the 
would-be  president  went  back  to  his  law  practice  in  his  same  old  quarters  at 
Lincoln,  Nebraska.  Mr.  Bryan  also  lectured  in  answer  to  many  calls  throughout 
the  country  on  social,  financial,  and  political  topics;  and  in  1897  he  made  an 
extensive  tour  in  Mexico  to  study  the  conditions  of  the  people,  and  especially  to 
investigate  the  financial  progress  of  the  government  under  free  coinage  of  both 
gold  and  silver. 

Early  in  1898  Mr.  Bryan  was  several  times  interviewed  regarding  the  wai 
with  Spain.  He  approved  President  McKinley's  policy  of  prudence  in  entering 
upon  hostilities,  but  when  war  had  been  declared  he  favored  its  prompt  and 
rigorous  prosecution  as  the  most  speedy  and  least  expensive  means  of  bringing 
it  to  a  successful  close.  He  was  the  first  man  to  enlist  as  a  private  in  the  Third 
Regiment  of  Nebraska  Volunteers  on  May  19,  1898.  So  contagious  was  his 
example  that  "  Company  A"  was  filled  within  five  hours,  and  Bryan  was  made 
its  captain.  When  the  regiment  was  completed,  Mr.  Bryan  was  appointed 
Colonel  by  the  Governor  of  the  State,  and  promptly  accepted  the  honor. 

In  1900  the  Democratic  Convention  at  Kansas  City  nominated  Mr.  Bryan 
for  the  Presidency  the  second  time. 

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HEROES  OF  SPANISH-AMERICAN  WAR. 


COMMANDER    OF    OUR    NAVY    FOR    THE    CONQUEST    OF    CUBA. 
WILLIAM    T.    SAMPSON. 

History  is  made  rapidly  during  the  days  of  war,  and  men  whose  names 
were  before  comparatively  unknown  to  the  world  suddenly  rise  like  rockets  above 
the  public  horizon,  and  attract  like  shooting  meteors  the  attention  and  admiration 
of  the  multitude. 

America  has  never  yet  needed  a  man  for  any  occasion  which  she  could  not 
furnish  ;  and  the  fact  that  he  usually  steps  forth  from  some  quiet,  unexpected 
corner  in  the  person  of  some  modest,  thoroughly  equipped,  but  unobtrusive 
man,  only  emphasizes  the  enormous  reserve  forces  at  the  command  of  our 
nation,  as  it  also  adds  to  the  fame  of  him  who  comes  as  a  successful  surprise — 
a  trained  and  long-waiting  hero — upon  the  stage  at  the  critical  moment  when 
his  country  needs  him. 

Such  a  man  is  the  now  famous  Rear-Admiral  Wm.  T.  Sampson,  Commander 
of  the  North  Atlantic  Squadron.  Many  events  have  gone  to  show  that  oui 
government  acted  wisely  when  it  raised  Captain  Sampson,  early  in  1898,  to  the 
rank  of  acting  Rear-Admiral  and  gave  him  supreme  command  of  our  naval  forces 
in  Cuban  waters.  In  all  the  operations  of  his  fleet  Admiral  Sampson  has  shown 
himself  a  brave,  discreet,  and  thoroughly  competent  commander;  and,  after 
thorough  trial  under  the  most  trying  circumstances,  with  the  eye  of  the  naval 
experts  of  the  world  upon  him,  he  has  not  been  found  wanting  in  any  particular. 

Admiral  Sampson  does  not  come  to  his  important  position  ^without  long  and 
thorough  training  for  it.  He  was  born  in  Palmyra,  New  York,  February  9,  1840, 
consequendy  was  fifty-eight  years  old  at  the  beginning  of  the  Spanish-American 
War — three  years  younger  than   Admiral   Dewey  of  Manila  tame;  one  yeai 

233 


234  WILLIAM  T.   SAMPSON. 

younger  than  General  Miles;  four  years  younger  than  Wesley  Merritt;  and  five 
years  the  junior  of  Fitzhugh  Lee  of  the  army. 

Like  Franklin,  Lincoln,  and  Grant,  Admiral  Sampson  came  of  very  humble 
parentage.  His  father  vi^as  a  day  laborer,  who  did  odd  jobs  and  sawed  wood  |1 
from  house  to  house,  while  his  son,  "  Billy,"  followed  him  and  split  it  up  the 
proper  size  and  laid  it  in  piles  or  packed  it  away  in  the  woodsheds.  Every 
moment  he  could  spare  he  was  at  his  books  and  attended  the  public  schools 
when  he  could.  That  he  diligently  improved  every  moment  and  that  he  was  a 
popular  boy  is  shown  by  the  fact  that,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  he  secured  an 
appointment  to  the  United  States  Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis,  where  he 
graduated  just  before  the  Civil  War  at  the  head  of  his  class,  and  prompdy 
entered  the  naval  service,  in  which  he  continued  to  the  close,  rising  to  the  rank 
of  lieutenant.  His  career  was  uneventful,  except  in  the  ordinary  lines  of  duty, 
affording  him  no  opportunity  for  individual  distinction,  but  he  was  always  a  very 
close  student  along  the  lines  of  his  profession,  to  which  he  was  thoroughly 
devoted ;  and  his  mastery  of  naval  science,  tactics,  and  seamanship  no  doubt 
accounts  for  his  present  high  and  honorable  position.  During  the  Civil  War 
he  was  on  board  the  ironclad  Patapsco  as  executive  officer,  when  that  vessel  was  | 
blown  up,  at  the  bombardment  of  Charleston  in  January,  1865.  An  account  of 
this  disaster,  related  by  Sampson  himself,  is  interesting.  "On  the  15th  of 
January,"  said  he,  "  the  monitor  Patapsco  and  the  Lehigh  were  sent  up  the 
Charleston  harbor  to  drag  for  torpedoes,  and  if  possible  to  learn  the  nature  and 
position  of  any  obstruction  placed  in  the  channel  by  the  Confederates.  I  was  on 
the  top  of  the  turret  and  the  Patapsco  was  drifting  slowly  up  the  harbor  when 
the  explosion  came.  My  first  impression  on  hearing  the  report  was  that  a  shot 
had  struck  the  overhang  just  below  the  water;  but  the  column  of  smoke  and 
water  which  immediately  shot  upward  convinced  me  of  the  real  nature  of  the 
explosion."  At  this  juncture,  in  reporting  the  details  to  his  superior,  Lieutenant 
S.  P.  Quackenbosh,  he  said:  "The  order  to  start  the  pumps  was  immediately 
given  by  you  through  the  turret.  So  impractical  did  the  order  appear  the  next 
instant  that  I  did  not  repeat  it.  You  immediately  afterwards  gave  order  to  man 
the  boats.  Although  these  orders  were  given  in  rapid  succession,  only  the 
officers  of  the  deck,  who  stepped  from  the  turret  into  the  boat,  had  time  to  obey  tj 
the  last  order  before  the  boat  was  afloat  at  the  davits.  Owing  to  the  wise  | 
provision  of  having  the  picket  boats  near  at  hand,  all  those  who  were  on  deck 
at  the  time  were  saved.  None  escaped  from  below  except  the  engineer  and 
fireman  and  one  other  man.  I  was  picked  up  by  one  of  the  picket  launches  and 
immediately  gave  order  to  the  officer  in  command  to  pull  up  the  harbor  in  the 
hope  of  picking  up  others." 

In  his  report  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  the  commanding  officer  gave  due 
praise  to  young  Sampson,  saying:  "The  cool  intrepidity  displayed  by  Lieutenant 


WILLIAM  T.   SAMPSON.  235 

Sampson,  my  executive  officer,  deserves  the  highest  prafse."  The  followincr 
year  young  Sampson  was  further  honored  by  being  made  Lieutenant-Commander. 

"  The  after-career  of  Admiral  Sampson  has  evinced,"  says  a  recent  writer, 
"just  such  quahties  as  he  displayed  aboard  the  Patapsco.  He  is  not  an  affable 
man  ;  but  he  is  always  the  gendeman,  and  he  is  as  unassuming  as  he  is  sagacious 
and  brave.  The  chiefs  of  bureaus  in  the  Navy  Department  are  entitled  by 
courtesy  to  the  rank  of  Commodore,  but  Sampson  never  availed  himself  of  the 
privilege.  When  he  was  at  the  head  of  the  Bureau  of  Ordinance,  strangers 
entering  his  office  would  frequently  address  him  as  •  Commodore.'  *  Captain, 
if  you  please,'  was  his  invariable  reply,  spoken  modestly  and  simply.  He  never 
cared  for  honors  which  he  had  not  fairly  won." 

Throughout  the  long  interim  of  rest  from  warfare  since  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War,  Admiral  Sampson  has  held  various  naval  appointments  under  the 
government ;  and,  as  suggested  above,  he  has  been  a  constant  student  of  his 
profession.  His  specialty  has  been  torpedo  work,  and  his  interest  in  it  has 
amounted  almost  to  the  proportions  of  a  hobby.  The  deeply  marked  face  shows 
him  to  be  a  student,  and  it  was  his  proficiency  of  knowledge  in  torpedo  and 
submarine  mining  which  suggested  his  appointment  as  President  of  the  Maine 
Board  of  Inquiry  early  in  1898,  in  which  his  judicial  qualities  challenged  the 
admiration  of  the  entire  country,  and,  coupled  with  his  former  record  as  a  sailor 
and  a  prudent  fighter,  accentuated  the  propriety  of  commissioning  him  Rear- 
Admiral  and  placing  him  in  command  of  the  North  Atlantic  Fleet.  In  1886  he 
was  made  Superintendent  of  the  United  States  Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis, 
and  before  his  appointment  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Board  of  Inquiry  he  had 
commanded  the  cruiser  San  Francisco,  and,  later,  the  battleship  Iowa. 

It  fell  to  Admiral  Sampson's  fortune  to  open  the  war  by  firing  the  first  shot 
from  his  gunboat  Nashville,  and  capturing  the  first  prize  of  the  war,  the  merchant 
steamer  Pedro,  which  he  sent  to  Key  West  with  a  prize  crew  on  board.  April, 
1898.  Several  others  were  taken  in  short  order  during  the  next  few  days,  and 
successively  towed  or  carried  under  their  own  steam  into  Key  West,  On  April 
27th,  Admiral  Sampson  steamed  on  an  inspecting  expedition  into  the  harbor  of 
Matanzas,  and  from  his  flagship,  the  New  York,  opened  fire  on  the  newly  erected 
sand  forts,  which  he  destroyed  with  about  fifty  shots.  The  Spaniards  returned 
the  fire,  but  did  no  damage  to  the  American  fleet.  Having  drawn  the  fire  from 
the  forts,  and  learned  the  location  of  the  fortifications  and  the  probable  number 
and  style  of  the  Spanish  guns.  Admiral  Sampson  sailed  away  to  await  the  proper 
time  of  positive  and  vigorous  attack.  This  was  the  beginning  of  acUve  hostilities 
in  the  war  with  Spain  for  Cuban  independence;  the  first  great  batde  of  which 
was  fought  and  won  so  gloriously  by  Admiral  Dewey  a  few  days  later.  May  ist, 
off  Manila,  Philippine  Islands. 

To  those  who  like  to. peep   behind   the  curtain  into  the  private  lives  of 


236  WILLIAM  T.   SAMPSON, 

public  men,  the  following  bit  of  information  concerning  the  home-life  of  Admiral 
Sampson  will  be  interesting.  In  one  sense  he  is  a  farmer ;  that  is,  he  owns  a 
farm  near  Palmyra,  New  York,  which  his  plain  brother  George  manages  for 
him,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  this  farm  is  situated  on  the  very  spot 
where  the  notorious  Joseph  Smith,  the  founder  of  Mormonism,  claims  to  have 
discovered  the  famous  engraved  gold  plates,  from  which,  with  the  aid  of  the 
revealinor  oflasses,  Urim  and  Thummin,  he  wrote  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

But  the  family  home  of  Admiral  Sampson  is  not  in  New  York.  It  is  at 
Glen  Ridge,  N.  J.,  presided  over  by  a  prudent  and  industrious  wife,  with  several 
daughters  and  two  stalwart,  round-cheeked,  growing  boys,  who  delight  to  dress 
in  sailor  costumes.  "  Of  course,  we  are  anxious,"  said  Miss  Nannie,  the  oldest 
of  Admiral  Sampson's  unmarried  daughters,  when  the  war  began,  "  but  I  don't 
think  we  are  worried  about  papa.  You  see  we  all  have  perfect  confidence  in 
his  ability  to  whip  the  Spaniards,  and  we  have  no  doubt  he  will  do  it  when  the 
opportunity  comes.''  When  incidents  or  anecdotes  illustrating  his  character 
were  requested,  Mrs.  Sampson  replied:  "  He  is  not  exactly  an  easy  person 
about  whom  to  tell  anecdotes.  He  is  very  dignfied,  you  see,  and  anecdotes  do 
not  cluster  about  him."  "  Father  never  talks  at  home  about  his  business"  said 
the  Admiral's  daughter.  *' In  Washino-ton  when  he  used  to  come  home  from  a 
meeting,  and  we  would  ask  him  for  the  news,  he  would  tell  us  gravely  that  the 
Dutch  had  taken  Holland,  and  with  that  we  had  to  be  content."  "  But  in  spite 
of  his  dignity,"  rejoined  Mrs.  Sampson,  "  he  is  always  ready  to  enter  into  any 
fun,  or,  when  there  is  none  to  enter  into,  to  make  it.  He  is  fond  of  outdoor 
sports  too."  "  Yes,"  his  daughter  declared,  "  he  plays  tennis  to  admiration.  He 
has  never  played  in  a  tournament,  you  know,"  she  said,  "  but  at  Annapolis,  when 
he  was  Superintendent  of  the  Naval  Academy,  there  was  no  one  who  could  match 
him.  He  likes  wheeling,  too  ;  but  golf  !  I  have  tried  to  get  him  to  play  golf, 
and  he  won't.      He  says,"  she  continued,  "  '  that  golf  is  an  old  man's  game.'  " 

Leaving  the  blockading  fleet  at  Havana  under  command  of  Commodore 
Watson,  Sampson  sailed  to  Porto  Rico.  On.  May  12th  he  bombarded  San 
Juan  and  again  turned  eastward  to  join  Commodore  Schley  in  the  Caribbean 
Sea  hunt  for  Cervera's  much  dreaded  Spanish  fleet.  On  May  30th  it  was 
found  that  the  enemy  had  taken  refuge  behind  the  fortifications  at  Santiago. 
After  a  month's  seige  Cervera  made  a  bold  dash  to  run  the  American  blockade, 
and  one  of  the  most  fierce  naval  battles  of  the  century  was  fought,  resulting 
in  the  complete  destruction  of  the  Spanish  fleet,  the  killing  or  capture  of  1800 
Spanish  sailors  and  officers,  including  Admiral  Cervera,  with  the  loss  of  only 
one  American  killed  and  three  wounded.  Unfortunately,  however,  for  Admiral 
Sampson  he  had  gone  to  consult  with  General  Shafter,  and  was  so  far  away 
when  the  battle  began  that  Comodore  Schley  won  the  victory  before  the  flag- 
ship could  steani  to  the  scene  of  action, 


DEWEY    ON    THE    BRIDGE    OF   THE    "OLYMPIA,"    MAY   1,  1898. 


THE  HERO  OF  THE  BATTLE  OF  MANILA, 
GEORGE   DEWEY. 

The  first  command  given  to  an  American  squadron  to  fight  in  nearly  thirty 
years  was  contained  in  this  eight-word  cablegram  to  Commodore  Dewey,  April 
25.  1898:  ""Capture  or  destroy  the  Spanish  squadron  at  Manila^  "Never," 
says  James  Gordon  Bennett,  "were  instructions  more  effectually  carried  out. 
Within  seven  hours  after  arrivinqr  on  the  scene  of  action  nothing  remained  to 
be  done." 

At  every  great  emergency  in  our  history  we  have  had  men  equal  to  the 
duties  that  faced  us.  The  men  of  the  Revolution  were  oriants  of  their  eeneration. 
Our  Civil  War  brought  forward  the  most  striking  personalities  of  the  century. 
The  great  merit  of  democracy  is  that  out  of  its  multitudes,  who  have  all  had 
a  chance  for  natural  development,  there  arise,  w^hen  occasion  demands,  stronger 
and  wiser  men  than  any  class-governed  societies  have  ever  bred. 

As  during  a  long  period  of  the  routine  of  domestic  politics  we  have  not  lost 
our  capacity  for  the  largest  statesmanship,  so  during  our  period  of  peace  we  did 
not  forget  our  courage  and  efficiency  in  war.  Sufficient  proof  was  given  us 
of  this  in  the  magnificent  and  brilliant  achievement  of  Commodore  Dewey,  who 
on  May  i,  1898,  destroyed  the  Spanish  fleet  at  Manila,  Philippine  Islands, 
without  the  loss  of  a  ship  or  a  man  from  his  squadron,  making  himself  for  the 
time  the  most  famous  living  naval  commander  of  the  world.  "It  may  surprise 
some  Americans,"  says  a  foreign  diplomat,  "  to  know  that  Dewey's  victory 
carries  with  it  spoils  of  war,  probably  larger  than  were  ever  before  decided  by 
the  issues  of  one  battle.  The  future  value  and  influence  of  this  conquest  are 
almost  incalculable." 

George  Dewey  was  born  in  Montpelier,  Ve/mont,  on  December  26,  1837. 
His  father  was  Dr.  Julius  Y.  Dewey,  a  prominent  life  insurance  authority,  an 
estimable  business  man,  and  also  a  physician.  The  Dewey  family  belongs  to 
New  England's  best  stock,  and  dates  its  ancestry  back  to  colonial  times.  After 
a  preparatory  course  in  the  Norwich  Military  School  of  Vermont,  George 
Dewey  was  appointed,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  as  a  cadet  to  Annapolis,  where 
he  graduated  in  1858  When  the  Civil  War  broke  out,  young  Dewey  was  made 
a  lieutenant  and  assigned  to  duty  on  the  seventeen-gun  steam-sloop  Mississippi. 
His  ship  was  in  Farragut's  squadrpp,  which  fprced  a  passage  up  the  Mississippi 

237 


238  GEORGE  DEWEY. 

River  in  1862.  This  was  Dewey's  first  experience  in  real  war.  In  passing 
Fort  Philip,  Dewey's  ship  was  subjected  to  severe  fire  from  the  Confederate 
artillery,  at  such  close  range,  it  is  said,  that  the  men  on  board  the  ships  and  those 
on  the  fortifications  exchanged  profane  compliments  which  were  clearly  audible 
to  each  other.  Later  an  incident  occurred  which  is  parallel  to  the  daring  feat 
performed  in  entering  Manila  Harbor,  and,  to  a  less  courageous  man,  would 
perhaps  have  been  sufficient  warning  against  braving  the  dangers  of  the  Spanish 
magazines.  One  of  the  crew  in  telling  of  the  incident  says:  "  In  the  middle 
of  the  night  we  attempted  to  pass  Port  Hudson  on  the  Mississippi  River.  All 
lio-hts  were  extinguished  in  our  endeavor  to  slip  by  without  being  discovered. 
I  distinctly  remember  Dewey  giving  orders  to  whitewash  the  decks  of  the  ship 
so  that  the  gunners  would  be  able  to  see  to  do  their  work  without  lights  ;  but  we 
were  discovered  when  opposite  Port  Hudson,  the  Mississippi  Avas  riddled  with 
shot  and  set  on  fire  by  the  enomy's  batteries.  The  officers  and  crew  quickly 
abandoned  the  ship  and  made  their  way  to  the  other  shore,  just  as  the  flames 
reached  the  Mississippi  s  magazine  and  she  exploded." 

Dewey  was  also  on  one  of  the  gunboats  at  the  engagement  at  Donaldsonville 
in  1863.  In  1 864  and  1865  he  was  an  officer  on  the  y^^^w^w,  which  was  engaged 
in  battle  at  Fort  Fisher.  In  March,  1865,  he  received  his  commission  as 
Lieutenant-Commander,  and  for  two  years  served  in  this  capacity  on  board  the 
Kearsarge  and  the  Colorado.  For  the  next  two  years  he  was  attached  to  the 
Naval  Academy,  which  position  he  retained  until  1870,  when  he  was  transferred 
to  the  Narragansett,  and  it  was  during  his  five  years'  charge  of  her  that  he  rose 
to  be  a  Commander.  In  1876  he  was  attached  to  the  Lighthouse  Board,  and 
again  in  1882  went  on  sea  duty  in  the  Asiatic  squadron  as  Commander  of  the 
Juniata.  When  the  coast  dispatch  boat,  the  DolpJmi,  the  first  vessel  in  our  new 
navy,  was  completed,  in  1884,  Dewey  was  made  Captain  of  this  ship.  The  next 
year  he  was  transferred  to  the  flagship  of  the  European  squadron,  the  Pensacola, 
which  he  continued  to  command  until  1888,  when  he  was  again  transferred  to 
shore  duty,  in  which  he  served  successively  as  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Equipment, 
then  on  the  Lighthouse  Board,  and,  when  made  Commodore  in  1896,  he  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  Inspection  Board.  In  January,  1898,  he  was  given 
command  of  the  Asiatic  squadron,  stationed  then  at  Hong  Kong,  China.  He 
had  been  but  a  few  weeks  in  his  new  position  when  the  declaration  of  war  with 
Spain  gave  him  the  chance  of  his  life  for  distinction,  which  he  so  brilliantly 
improved  by  falling  upon  and  annihilating  the  Spanish  fleet  and  forts  at  M^nila^ 
Philippine  Islands,  May  ist,  just  six  days  after  the  declaration  of  war. 

It  is  little  wonder  Dewey  has  acqui'-ed  among  his  naval  associates  the  title 
of  "The  Lucky,"  for  had  he  not  been  transferred  from  the  land  service  and 
placed  in  command  of  the  fleet  just  when  he  was,  or  had  the  opportunity 
occurred  a  few  months  earlier,  the  honor  and  reputation  which  are  his  would 


GEORGE  DEWEY.  239 

have  fallen  to  his  predecessor.  Again,  Admiral  Dewey,  at  the  time  of  his  great 
victory  at  Manila,  was  sixty-one  years  of  age.  Had  the  war  with  Spain  come 
a  year  later  he  would  have  been  on  the  retired  list.  Was  Dewey's  fame,  after 
all,  a  matter  of  "luck,"  or  is  it  better  to  take  the  philosophic  view  and  regard 
it  as  an  illustration  of  the  truth  of  the  old  adage  that  "honor  and  reward  are 
sure  to  come  to  those  who  faithfully  labor  and  patiently  wait?" 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  a  mark  of  Dewey's  greatness  that  he  so 
brilliantly  and  successfully  embraced  and  used  his  opportunity  when  it  did 
come.  In  the  minds  of  the  American  people  and  of  the  world  at  laro-e,  it  is 
seriously  doubted  whether  any  other  Commander  of  our  navy  would  have  won 
this  victory  as  Dewey  did,  destroying  eleven  Spanish  vessels,  killing  and 
wounding  about  one  thousand  of  the  enemy,  and  that  without  serious  damage 
to  one  ship  of  his  squadron  or  the  loss  of  a  single  man.  The  parallel  of  this 
achievement  is  not  to  be  found  elsewhere  in  the  pages  of  naval  history. 

The  Spanish  officers  attribute  their  defeat  to  the  fact  that  they  were  out- 
matched in  the  efficiency  and  strength  of  the  American  fleet,  and  also  to  the 
fact  that  the  American  ships  were  painted  a  lead  color,  so  that  they  could  not 
be  distinctly  seen  by  the  Spanish  gunners.  They  also  give  due  credit  to  the 
accuracy  and  rapidity  of  Dewey's  fire.  Admiral  Montojo,  in  the  face  of  his 
overwhelming  defeat,  on  Monday  after  the  battle  on  Sunday,  sent  Commodore 
Dewey  his  compliments  on  the  American  marksmanship,  declaring  he  had 
never  witnessed  such  rapid  and  accurate  firing.  Commodore  Dewey  gener- 
ously complimented  the  Spaniards  for  their  bravery  in  return,  and  attributed 
their  defeat  to  inferior  ships  and  not  to  any  lack  of  courage. 

When  the  official  reports  of  the  battle  were  received.  President  McKinley 
said  :  "  It  is  the  triumph  of  a  just  cause  by  the  grace  of  God  ;"  and  he  promptly 
nominated  Commodore  Dewey  to  be  appointed  a  Rear- Admiral  in  the  United 
States  Navy.  The  Senate  unanimously  confirmed  the  nomination,  and  he  was 
accordingly  promoted  to  that  position. 

The  battle  of  Manila  must  ever  remain  a  monument  to  the  daring  and 
courage  of  Admiral  Dewey.  However  unevenly  matched  the  two  fleets  may 
have  been,  we  must  agree  with  the  naval  critic  who  declared  :  "  This  complete 
victory  was  the  product  of  forethought,  cool,  well-balanced  judgment,  disci- 
pline, and  bravery."  Dewey  entered  with  his  squadron  an  unknown  harbor, 
supposed  to  be  strewn  with  deadly  mines,  and  blew  up  the  Spanish  navy  that 
was  protected  by  the  heavy  guns  of  the  shore  batteries  ;  and  not  only  did  he 
sink  the  vessels,  but  he  silenced  those  batteries.  It  was  magnificent ;  and 
Dewey  will  go  down  in  history  ranking  with  Paul  Jones  and  Lord  Nelson  as  a 
naval  hero.  Almost  with  the  echo  of  his  own  guns,  the  praises  of  the  civilized 
world  greeted  the  conqueror's  ears.  The  poetry,  rhymes  and  eulogies  written 
of  the  victor  and  his  victory  would  fill  volumes. 


240  GEORGE  DEWEY. 

But  great  as  was  the  victory  at  Manila,  in  one  sense  it  was  the  least  diffi- 
cult of  the  tasks  performed  by  Admiral  Dewey  in  the  Philippines,  for  it  was 
followed  by  a  year  in  that  tropical  climate  with  all  the  resources  of  his  unusually 
resourceful  nature  taxed  to  the  last  degree.  In  the  first  place,  the  force  under 
his  command  was  too  small  to  occupy  the  captured  city.  Aguinaldo  was 
crafty  and  treacherous.  Germany  manifested  an  unfriendly  disposition.  Those 
were  anxious  months  before  the  American  army  came  under  General  Merritt, 
and  with  Dewey's  assistance  fought  the  final  battle  August  13th,  when  the 
Spaniards  surrendered  Manila.  In  February,  1899,  ^'^^  with  the  Filipinos 
broke  out,  entailing  another  constant  strain.  Besides  this,  he  was  the  adviser 
of  General  Otis,  who  succeeded  General  Merritt  as  commander  in  the  Philip- 
pines, and  also  a  member  of  the  United  States  Philippine  Commission. 

Perhaps  no  other  naval  commander  was  ever  taxed  with  such  a  multiplicity 
of  important  duties,  and  yet  so  well  were  all  his  duties  performed,  that  from 
May  ist,  1898,  to  May,  1899,  when  he  left  for  the  United  States,  the  voice 
of  our  nation  and  of  the  world  universally  proclaimed,  "//<?  made  no  77tistake" 
Nor  was  our  country  slack  in  its  rewards.  On  February  13th,  1809,  Rear 
Admiral  Dewey  was  made  full  Admiral.  Only  two  men,  Farragut  and  Porter, 
had  ever  before  held  this  title  in  America.  After  the  death  of  Porter  the  rank 
became  extinct,  and  it  was  revived  especially  to  honor  the  hero  of  Manila. 

On  May  20th  the  Admiral  left  Manila  on  his  famous  flagship  Olympia  for 
America.  On  his  journey  home  he  stopped  at  a  number  of  foreign  ports,  and 
received  ovations  such  as  no  other  naval  hero  ever  had  accorded  him  by  foreign 
powers,  his  own  modesty  and  good  sense  often  checking  extravagant  demon- 
strations ;  but  when  New  York  was  reached,  September  30th,  1899,  the  hero 
resigned  himself  to  the  inevitable  fate  of  receiving  the  unavoidable  adulation 
of  a  country  intoxicated  with  the  glory  of  his  fame.  No  other  mortal  man, 
ancient  or  modern,  ever  witnessed  such  a  demonstration  prepared  in  his  honor 
as  the  United  States  gave  Admiral  Dewey  in  the  naval  and  land  parades  in 
New  York  City.     A  description  of  them  is  impossible  here. 

With  characteristic  modesty  the  great  man  passed  through  this  blaze  of 
magnificent  display,  received  the  $5,000  loving  cup  of  pure  gold  from  New 
York  City,  and  then  went  to  Washington,  made  his  official  report  to  President 
McKinley,  received  a  $10,000  sword  as  a  gift  from  the  United  States,  and  a 
$50,000  home  as  a  gift  from  the  private  citizens  all  over  America,  who  volun- 
tarily sent  in  their  contributions  to  buy  it  for  him. 

Such  a  splendid  home  was  too  much  for  a  widower  and  on  November  9th 
Dewey  again  surprised  and  pleased  the  nation  by  quietly  marrying  the  charm- 
ing widow,  Mrs.  Mildred  Hazen,  who  had  won  his  heart  years  before  he  won 
the  battle  of  Manila.  The  Admiral's  first  wife,  the  daughter  of  Governor 
Gpodwin  of  New  Hampshire  died  in  1875. 


NELSON    APPLETON    MILES 

CONirvlANDER.    OK    THE    UNITED    STATES    ARMY. 

"If  young  Miles  lives  he  will  be  one  of  the  most  distinguished  officers  in 
the  service,"  said  Major-General  Hancock  when  the  subject  of  this  sketch  was 
little  more  than  a  boy. 

Such  remarks  have  been  made  of  thousands  of  youngsters  in  all  the  walks 
of  life  by  their  admiring  friends,  and  yet  these  young  hopefuls  seldom  fulfilled 
the  friendly  prophecies  in  the  smallest  degree  ;  but  that  General  Hancock  was 
a  true  prophet,  or  a  good  guesser,  the  after-life  of  his  young  friend  fully  proved, 

Major-General  Nelson  A.  Miles,  Commander  of  the  United  States  Army, was 
born  in  Westminster,  Mass.  Augusts,  1839.  Hence  he  was  fifty-nine  years  of  age 
when  the  Spanish-American  War  began  in  1898.  His  distinguished  services  had 
at  that  time  endeared  him  to  the  American  people  to  such  an  extent  that  Con- 
gress had  already  seriously  considered  the  matter  of  appointing  him  Lieutenant- 
General,  an  honor  which  had  been  conferred  only  upon  six  Americans — ^George 
Washington,  Winfield  Scott,  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  and  Schofield. 

Curiously  enough.  General  Miles  is  the  only  soldier  in  the  last  half-cen- 
tury who  has  reached  the  position  of  chief  in  command  of  the  American  Army 
without  having  graduated  at  West  Point,  His  success  must  be  attributed  to 
the  fact  that  he  is  a  born  soldier — brave  and  wise — and  that  he  is  a  man  of  the 
most  extraordinary  strength  of  character,  combined  with  irresistibly  winning 
personal  characteristics. 

The  story  of  General  Miles'  career  is  one  filled  with  varied  and  interesting 
episodes.  To  begin  with,  he  was  born  and  grew  up  on  a  farm.  He  came  from 
old  American  stock.  His  ancestors  were  among  the  earliest  pioneers  and 
explorers,  having  settled  in  Massachusetts  Colony  in  1643,  ^^^  their  descendants 
were  among  the  patriots  who  struggled  for  freedom  in  the  Revolutionary  War, 
and  others  of  them  served  in  the  War  of  181  2,  During  his  boyhood  young 
Miles  received  an  academic  education,  and  in  early  manhood  engaged  in  mer- 
cantile pursuits,  in  which  he  was  engaged  in  the  city  of  Boston  when  the  great 
Civil  War  broke  out  in  1861.  Inheriting  the  spirit  of  patriotism,  he  generously 
devoted  all  of  the  little  he  possessed  toward  the  expense  of  raising  a  company 
of  volunteers  and  offered  his  services  to  his  country.  For  the  zeal  and  patriot- 
ism manifested  he  was  given  the  commission  of  a  Captain,  but  being  considered 

24X 


242  NELSON  APPLETON  MILES. 

too  young  for  the  responsibility  of  that  command,  he  did  not  assume  it,  but 
instead  went  into  the  army  of  the  Potomac  as  Lieutenant  of  the  Twenty- second 
Massachusetts  Volunteers.  His  capacity  was  soon  made  manifest,  calling  forth 
the  opening  remark  of  this  sketch  by  General  Hancock,  and  in  1862  he  was 
commissioned,  by  Governor  Morgan  of  New  York,  Colonel  of  the  Sixty-first 
New  York  Volunteers.  In  this  capacity  his  services  proved  so  efficient  that 
Generals  Meade  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant  joined  in  a  request  that  he  be  made 
Brigadier-General  of  Volunteers,  which  commission  was  afterwards  conferred 
upon  him  by  President  Lincoln. 

During  his  career  General  Miles  was  engaged  in  all  the  battles  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  except  one — and  this  his  wounds  at  the  time  rendered  him 
incapable  of  participating  in.  He  commanded  successively  regements,  brigades, 
and  divisions,  and  in  1865  was  put  in  command  of  the  Second  Army  Corps, 
numbering  over  25,000  men,  said  to  be  the  largest  command  ever  held  in 
America  by  an  officer  only  twenty-five  years  of  age. 

General  Miles  was  particularly  prominent  in  the  closing  scenes  of  the 
war.  His  immediate  command  was  the  P'irst  Division  of  the  Second  Army 
Corps,  which  was  in  such  close  proximity  to  the  Confederate  forces  that  all  the 
correspondence  between  Generals  Grant  and  Lee  regarding  the  terms  of 
surrender  passed  directly  through  General  Miles'  command,  and  it  was  to  his 
line  that  General  Lee  first  came  when  he  surrendered  the  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia,  April  9,  1865,  at  Appomattox  Court  House. 

The  distinguished  soldier  wears  upon  his  person  the  marks  of  his  profession. 
Always  in  the  thickest  of  the  fight  when  opportunity  afforded,  it  is  perhaps 
remarkable  that  he  escaped  with  the  few  scars  which  he  carries.  At  the  battles 
of  Fair  Oaks,  Fredericksburg,  and  Chancellorsville  he  was  wounded,  and  for 
gallant  and  distinguished  services  was  four  times  brevetted.  Another  mark 
of  the  oonfidence  reposed  in  him  was  his  appointment  to  take  charge  of  the 
person  of  the  Confederate  President,  Jefferson  Davis,  when  he  was  captured  and 
sent  to  Fortress  Monroe  as  a  prisoner,  and  the  fact  that  he  manacled  his 
distinguished  prisoner  made  young  Miles  for  a  time  exceedingly  unpopular  in 
the  South,  where  the  fallen  leader  had  the  full  sympathy  of  his  followers  ;  but 
these  were  war  times,  and  by  the  North  Jefferson  Davis  was  then  regarded  as 
an  arch-conspirator,  and  as  a  military  officer  the  young  commander  felt  the 
supreme  importance  of  keeping  his  prisoner  so  securely  that  there  should  be  no 
possibility  of  escape.  Hence  the  liberal-minded  Southerner  of  the  present  must 
regard  the  action  of  General  Miles  in  this  incident  as  induced  by  a  soldierly 
sense  of  duty  to  his  country,  in  the  discharge  of  which  he  could  not  afford  for 
himself,  or  for  the  nation,  to  take  the  slightest  chances  of  failure.  Certainly  those 
who  know  General  Miles  personally  regard  the  great-hearted  soldier  as 
incapable  of    inflictmg  upon    an  old   man,  and  especially  so  distinguished  a 


NELSON  APPLETON  MILES.  243 

personage  as  the  President  of  the  fallen  Confederacy,  unnecessary  pain  or 
humiliation. 

At  the  close  of  hostilities  young  Miles  was  further  honored  bybeino-  placed 
in  command  of  the  district  of  North  Carolina  during  the  work  of  reconstruction, 
and  in  that  State  he  is  still  remembered  as  a  wise  administrator,  and  in  the  heat 
of  sectional  animosity,  which  then  existed,  his  actions  are  now  regarded  by  the 
best  people  of  North  Carolina  as  generous  and  sympathetic. 

Since  the  war  General  Miles  has  been  perhaps  the  most  prominent  active 
soldier  in  the  service  of  the  government.  When  the  army  was  first  reorganized 
he  was  appointed  Colonel  of  Infantry.  In  1880  he  was  made  Brigadier-General, 
and  in  1890  Major-General  of  the  United  States  Army,  and  has  since  succeeded 
General  O.  Howard  as  chief-in-command  of  the  land  forces.  During  the  past 
twenty-five  years  he  has  figured  prominently  in  our  frontier  troubles,  and 
successfully  conducted  an  Indian  campaign  against  the  Kiowas,  Comanches,  and 
Cheyennes  in  the  Indian  Territory  and  the  Southwest ;  the  Sioux,  Cheyennes, 
Perces,  and  others  in  the  Northwest ;  and  the  Apaches  in  Arizona  and  New 
Mexico.  For  his  efficient  services  he  received  the  public  thanks  of  the  States 
of  Montana,  Kansas,  Arizona,  and  New  Mexico,  where  he  not  only  quelled 
outbreaks  of  tbe  savages,  but  on  several  occasions  prevented  Indian  wars  by 
the  judicious  and  humane  settlement  of  difficulties  without  the  use  of  military 
power. 

After  General  Miles'  active  life  in  the  West,  and  prior  to  the  opening  of  the 
Spanish-American  War,  he  devoted  a  considerable  portion  of  his  time  to  literary 
work.  His  articles  on  various  phases  of  military  science,  tactics,  history,  and 
achievements  have  contributed  very  materially  to  that  branch  of  American 
literature,  and  added  to  his  high  distinction  as  a  commander  the  honors  of 
authoritative  authorship  along  the  lines  of  his  professional  calling. 

With  this  brilliant  record  behind  him,  and  occupying  the  chief  position  in 
command  of  the  regular  army  when  war  was  declared,  General  Miles  was  the 
logical  leader  of  our  forces  for  the  invasion  of  Cuba,  as  he  was  unquestionably 
the  choice  of  an  appreciative  nation  for  that  distinguished  honor.  The  ad- 
ministration, however,  ordered  otherwise.  General  W.  R.  Shafter  was  put  in 
command  of  the  army  of  Invasion  and  conducted  operations  against  Santiago. 
General  Miles  arrived  on  the  field  with  re-inforcements  a  few  days  before  the 
fall  of  the  city,  and  was  present  with  Shafter  when  Toral,  the  Spanish  general, 
met  him  between  the  lines  and  formally  surrendered,  July  17,  1898.  Promptly 
after  this  General  Miles  went  to  Porto  Rico  with  an  army  of  invasion.  He 
landed  at  Ponce  early  in  August,  and  while  conducting  a  triumphal  but  slightly 
opposed  advance  toward  the  Porto  Rican  capital,  the  protocol  of  peace  was 
signed  by  the  United  States  and  Spain. 

In  the  year  1900  General  Miles  was  made  Lieutenant-General,  and  under 
the  new  army  bill  of  1901  his  influence  was  greatly  enlarged. 


FITZHUGH  LEE 

THE  BRAVE  UNITED  STATES  CONSUL^QENERAL 

TO  CUBA. 

If  there  remains  one  lingering  question  about  the  sincere  abandoning  of 
the  "  lost  cause  "  of  the  South,  and  the  final  furling  of  the  Confederate  flag  on 
the  part  of  its  noble  defenders,  that  doubt  has  been  forever  settled  by  the 
Spanish-American  War ;  and  it  is  now  recognized  as  never  before  that  the 
magnanimity  of  the  Northern  conqueror  has  been  fully  matched  by  the  gene- 
rosity of  the  vanquished  Southerner,  who  returned  to  the  fold  of  the  Union 
with  a  speediness  and  forgetfulness  of  the  past  and  an  ardor  of  patriotism 
which  is  at  once  the  pride  of  our  nation  and  the  marvel  of  the  world. 

If  the  war  with  Spain  should  have  accomplished  no  other  direct  good  for 
our  country,  it  has  at  least  proven  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  to  Americans 
themselves  and  the  world  at  large  that  the  spirit  of  disunion  has  now  no  place 
in  the  United  States,  and  that  our  government  stands  to-day  the  most  firmly 
cemented — ^as  well  as  the  most  humane  and  the  most  progressive — nation  upon 
the  earth.  What  better  testimony  does  anyone  ask  for  the  establishment  of 
this  fact  than  the  unprecedented  spectacle  of  two  such  Confederate  Generals 
as  Fitzhugh  Lee,  of  Virginia,  and  Joseph  Wheeler,  of  Alabama,  marching  with 
thousands  of  their  old  Southern  comrades-in-arms  to  fight  the  battles  of  the 
Union  ? 

A  little  more  than  three  decades  ago  these  renowned  Confederate  Generals 
wore  the  gray,  and  under  the  stars  and  bars  of  secession  led  their  cavaliers  and 
the  chivalrous  sons  of  the  South,  in  a  cause  which  they  believed  to  be  just, 
against  the  stars  and  stripes  and  their  equally  brave  brothers  in  blue  from  the 
North. 

Now  beneath  the  old  flag  of  a  reunited  country,  the  grizzled  foes  of  thirty 
years  ago — aye,  even  the  liberated  slave  and  his  former  masters — march 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  united  by  a  common  bond  of  patriotic  pride,  actuated  by 
the  same  spirit  of  liberty — "  Forward,  in  the  name  of  humanity  and  of  freedom  !" 
The  gray  hairs  of  riper  age  and  riper  judgment  and  a  ripe,  exalted  patriotism 
are  now  the  only  suggestions  of  the  gray  uniform  on  the  old  Southerner ;  for 
now — 

As  the  long  line  comes  marching  on 
It  is  all  blue  ! 

And  the  star-spangled  banner  waves  over  them  all — 
They  are  all  true  ! 
244 


FITZHUGH  LEE.  ,^^ 

Major-General  Fitzhugh  Lee  Is  not,  as  has  been  sometimes  supposed,  the 
son  of  the  famous  Commander-in-Chief,  General  Robert  E.  Lee.  Robert  E. 
Lee  had  a  son  by  the  name  of  WiUiam  Henry  Fitzhugh  Lee,  who  was  born  in 
1837  at  ArHngton,  and  was  a  distinguished  commander  in  the  Confederate 
service.      This,  perhaps,  accounts  for  the  popular  error. 

Fitzhugh  Lee,  the  subject  of  this  sketch,  was  born  on  November  19,  1835, 
at  Clermont,  Fairfax  County,  Virginia.  He  is  a  nephew  of  General  Robert  E. 
Lee  and  a  grandson  of  the  famous  "Light-horse  Harry  Lee"  (Robert  E.'s 
father)  of  Revolutionary  fame.  His  well-deserved  popularity  is  not  merely 
incidental  to  his  late  office  as  Consul-General  to  Cuba,  and  as  one  of  the 
commanding  generals  in  the  Spanish-American  War,  but  is  built  upon  a  splendid 
career  as  a  man,  a  soldier,  and  a  patriot.  In  every  relation  of  life  he  has  proved 
himself  a  worthy  descendant  of  a  long  line  of  illustrious  ancestors,  dating  back 
for  more  than  a  century  in  Virginia,  and  of  no  small  fame  in  England  before 
their  coming  to  America.  Sydney  Smith  Lee,  the  father  of  Fitzhugh,  was  a 
naval  officer,  and  was  Fleet-Captain  of  Commodore  Perry's  Squadron  when  it 
opened  Japan  to  the  world.  But  the  son  did  not  desire  to  follow  the  sea.  The 
daring  brilliancy  of  his  grandfather,  Light-horse  Harry,  charmed  him  and  he 
wanted  to  be  a  cavalryman.  He  loved  horses,  and  it  is  said  when  he  was 
fourteen  "he  could  ride  like  a  Comanche." 

Fitzhugh  Lee  entered  West  Point  Military  Academy  in  1852  and  graduated 
in  1856,  as  he  humorously  says,  "third  in  my  class  if  you  commence  to  count 
from  the  bottom."  But  Lee  was  when  young,  as  he  has  been  always  since,  a 
man  of  action  rather  than  a  man  of  books.  It  is  also  said  he  might  have  ranked 
a  little  higher  had  not  his  strict  uncle,  Robert  E.  Lee,  been  Superintendent  of 
the  Military  Academy  while  he  was  there.  After  graduation  he  was  commis- 
sioned a  Second  Lieutenant  in  the  Second  United  States  Cavalry,  and  sent  to 
a  frontier  post,  where  in  1859  he  was  severely  wounded  in  a  fight  with  Indians, 
in  consequence  of  which  he  had  to  give  up  active  service  temporarily,  and  in 
May,  i860,  was  ordered  to  West  Point,  where  he  was  made  instructor  of 
Cavalry.  This  post  he  held  until  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War  in  1861,  when 
he  resigned  his  commission  and  entered  the  Confederate  service  and  served  as 
Adjutant-General  of  E well's  Brigade,  until  September,  1 861,  when  he  was  made 
Lieutenant-Colonel  of  the  P^irst  Virginia  Cavalry,  and  was  afterwards  promoted 
to  Colonel.  During  the  war  he  participated  in  all  of  the  campaigns  of  the 
Army  of  Northern  Virginia. 

On  the  25th  of  July,  1862,  Colonel  Lee  was  made  a  Brigadier-General,  and 
on  the  3d  of  September  the  next  year  was  promoted  to  Major-General.  In  the 
Battle  of  Winchester,  September  19,  1864,  where  General  Sheridan  made  his 
famous  ride,  three  horses  were  shot  under  Lee,  and  he  was  himself  disabled  by 
a  severe  wound,  which  kept  him  from  duty  for  several  months. 


246  FITZHUGH  LEE. 

In  March,  1865,  Fitzhugh  Lee  was  honored  by  being  put  in  command  of 
the  whole  cavalry  corps  of  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  which  position  he 
held  until  a  month  later,  when  the  fall  came.  Fitzhugh  witnessed  the  memor- 
able meeting  between  his  uncle  and  General  Grant,  and  he  has  frequently 
expressed  his  appreciation  of  the  magnanimity  displayed  by  the  victorious  com- 
mander on  that  occasion,  when  "  General  Grant  not  only  refrained,"  says  Fitz- 
hugh Lee,  "  from  asking  for  my  uncle's  sword,  as  was  the  custom,  but  actually 
apologized  for  not  having  his  own  sword  on  at  the  time." 

General  Lee  loves  a  good  joke,  even  at  his  own  expense,  and  he  tells  this 
amusing  story  on  himself :  After  the  surrender  of  the  Confederate  forces  at 
Appomattox,  he  rode  to  his  home  in  Stafford  County  on  horseback.  He  stopped 
at  an  old  farmer's  house  for  dinner,  and  his  host  inquired  the  news  from  the 
front.  "  Very  sad  news,"  answered  the  visitor  "  The  war  is  over.  General 
Lee  has  surrendered."  His  farmer  host,  not  knowing  who  his  soldier  visitor 
was,  rose  up  indignantly  and  said  with  great  emphasis  :  "  Never,  sir,  never.  I 
don't  believe  a  word  of  it.  That  little  whipper-snapper  Fitzhugh  Lee  might 
have  surrendered,  but  Uncle  Robert,  never,  sir,  never!" 

After  the  war  Fitzhugh  Lee,  like  other  Southern  men  of  note,  returned  to 
his  ordinary  vocation,  and  lived  in  a  quiet,  retired  way  during  the  days  of 
reconstruction. 

In  1 87 1  he  was  married  to  Miss  Ellen  Bernard  Fowle,  of  Alexandria, 
Virginia.  Mrs.  Lee's  ancestry  is  equally  divided  between  Puritan  and  Cavalier. 
Her  grandfather  came  from  Salem,  Massachusetts,  where  she  is  related  to  the 
Hoopers,  Wentworths,  Holmes,  and  other  distinguished  New  England  families. 
On  her  mother's  side  she  has  a  long  line  of  Virginia  and  Maryland  ancestors, 
including  the  Bernards  and  others. 

In  1874  Lee  made  a  speech  at  Bunker  Hill,  which  attracted  wide  attention 
throughout  the  country.  In  the  winter  and  spring  of  1882-3  he  made  a  tour  of  the 
Southern  States  in  the  interest  of  the  Southern  Historical  Society,  during  which 
time  he  gathered  a  vast  amount  of  war  history,  relics,  etc.,  which  are  preserved 
in  the  archives  of  the  Society  at  Richmond,  and  become  more  valuable  and 
interesting  with  each  advancing  year.  In  1 885  General  Lee  was  elected  Governor 
of  Virginia,  in  which  capacity  he  served  his  State  for  four  years,  with  marked 
credit  to  himself  and  satisfaction  to  his  constituents.  In  1886  the  Washington 
celebration  was  held  in  New  York  City,  and  the  Governors  and  the  pick  of  the 
State  troops  of  the  various  States  were  present  and  took  part  in  the  procession. 
General  Lee,  with  a  full  flowing  beard  and  a  magnificent  physique  and  soldierly 
bearing,  riding  at  the  head  of  the  Virginia  troops,  was  a  conspicuous  figure,  and 
received  an  ovation  second  to  that  accorded  to  no  public  man  present. 

After  the  expiration  of  his  term  as  Governor,  General  Lee  returned  to  pri- 
vate life  until  he  was  appointed  Consul-General  to  Cuba  by  President  Cleveland 


FITZHUGH  LEE.  247 

in  1897.  In  this  capacity  his  services  were  so  satisfactory  and  valuable  that, 
though  he  tendered  his  resignation  to  the  new  administration  in  1897,  Presi- 
dent McKinley  requested  him  to  retain  his  position,  which  he  did  until  the 
breaking  out  of  hostilities  between  this  country  and  Spain  in  1898.  So  emi- 
nently courageous  and  diplomatic  were  General  Lee's  services  durino-  the  three 
years'  desperate  struggle  of  the  Cuban  patriots,  which  reduced  the  fertile  island 
to  a  land  of  mourning  and  desolation,  that  he  possessed  the  confidence  not  only 
of  the  two  administrations,  but  of  the  whole  country  as  well. 

When  hostilities  were  declared  he  returned  to  the  United  States  and  was 
appointed  Major-General  in  the  army  of  invasion,  and  placed  in  command 
of  the  Seventh  Army  Corps,  comprising  five  regiments  of  troops  at  Tampa 
and  the  troops  at  Jacksonville,  numbering  at  the  beginning  of  June,  1898, 
about  10,000  men. 

One  beautifully  significant  fact  in  connection  with  General  Lee's  command 
is  that  he  chose  Algernon  Sartoris,  the  grandson  of  his  old  foe.  General  U.  S. 
Grant,  to  serve  with  his  own  son,  Fitzhugh,  junior,  in  the  capacity  of  his  First 
Lieutenant.  It  is  said  that  young  Sartoris  had  the  most  profound  respect  for  the 
soldierly  qualities  of  his  chief,  and  that  his  admiration  for  him  personally  caused 
him  to  seek  a  place  on  his  staff  in  preference  to  that  of  any  other  commander. 

General  Lee  is  a  typical  American,  chivalrous,  patriotic,  magnanimous,  and 
as  great  in  forbearance  as  he  is  valorous  in  defense  of  the  principles  of  justice 
and  humanity. 

We  are  indebted  to  "  The  Puritan  "  of  May,  1898,  for  the  following  domes- 
tic picture  of  the  General's  household  : 

"  General  and  Mrs.  Lee  have  five  children,  Fitzhugh,  junior,  Ellen,  George, 
Nannie,  and  Virginia.  They  were  all  born  on  the  Lees'  country  estate  in  Staf- 
ford County,  excepting  the  youngest,  Virginia,  who  was  born  in  the  guberna- 
torial mansion  at  Richmond,  during  her  father's  term  as  Governor  of  the  State 
for  which  she  is  named. 

"  The  home  of  the  family  at  present  is  in  Park  Avenue,  Richmond.     For 

many  years  past  they  have  resided   in  the  seven-hilled  historical  capital  of  the 

Confederacy,  though  they  removed  temporarily  to  Lynchburg,  a  few  years  ago 

when   General   Lee  was  appointed  by  President  Cleveland  as  a  collector  of 

internal   revenue,  with  headquarters  in   that  city.      Mrs.  Lee   is  a  handsome, 

sweet-faced    matron,  with   black    hair   now  turning  to   silver,  and    high-bred 

features.      Miss  Lee  is  a  very  pretty  girl  of  twenty  or  twenty-one,  rather  slight 

in  figure,  with  red-gold  hair,  dark  eyes,  and  regular  features,  in  which  both  her 

father's  firmness  and  her  mother's  gentleness  are  mirrored.     She  speaks  with 

just  a  suspicion  of  Southern  accent — or,  rather  with  that  softness  peculiar  to 

Virginia,  where  such  names  as,  for  instance,  Carter  of  Cartersville,  are  not 

pronounced  precisely  as  they  are  spelled. 
15S&D 


248  FITZHUGH  LEE. 

"  When  General  Lee  was  first  appointed  to  his  post  in  Cuba,  two  years 
ago,  he  took  his  elder  son  with  him,  and  left  the  rest  of  the  family  at  home  in 
Lynchburg.  His  wife  and  daughter  would  gladly  have  accompanied  him  then  ; 
but  it  was  at  the  beginning  of  summer,  a  very  trying  season  on  the  island  of 
Cuba,  and  neither  a  desirable  nor  a  safe  change  from  the  temperate  climate  of 
Virginia.  In  the  fall  of  the  same  year  (1896),  however,  General  Lee  came 
home  on  a  brief  furlough  ;  and  when  he  returned  to  Havana,  he  took  Mrs.  Lee 
and  Miss  Ellen  along  with  him. 

"  The  ladies  spent  the  winter  in  the  then  beleaguered  capital  and  base  of 
operations  of  the  Spanish  army,  and  were  delighted  with  the  experience.  Miss 
Lee  took  her  bicycle  along,  though  probably  there  is  less  cycling  in  Havana 
than  in  any  other  city  of  its  size  in  the  world,  excepting  Venice.  The  United 
States  consulate  was  in  the  triangular  building  of  the  English  Mercantile  In- 
surance Company,  at  the  intersection  of  Cuba  and  Obispo  Streets.  General 
Lee's  family,  however,  lived  in  a  private  house  on  the  Prado,  which  is  the  prin- 
cipal residence  section  of  the  city.  They  were  treated  with  uniform  courtesy 
by  Spaniards  and  Cubans  generally." 

Fortunately  for  the  lives  of  many  of  the  brave  soldiers  of  General  Lee's 
corps,  but  disappointing  to  their  ambitions,  they  were  not  so  unlucky  in  one 
sense,  nor  so  lucky  in  another,  as  to  be  ordered  to  Cuba  before  the  war  closed. 
For  many  weary  months  they  remained  in  camp  in  the  southern  portions  of 
the  United  States,  not  only  until  after  peace  was  declared  with  Spain,  but 
even  until  it  was  found  that  their  services  as  a  body  were  not  needed  in  the 
Philippines.  Therefore,  neither  they  nor  their  gallant  commander  were  per- 
mitted to  share  personally  in  the  active  work  and  the  consequent  honor  of  the 
conquest. 

In  1899,  when  the  Spanish  soldiers  had  been  returned  to  Spain,  the  island 
of  Cuba  was  put  under  military  government,  and  General  Lee  was  sent  by  the 
United  States  as  military  governor  of  the  province  of  Havana,  which  office  he 
administered  with  his  usual  marked  ability  and  fairness,  to  the  satisfaction  of 
his  own  countrymen  and  the  Cubans.  His  appointment  was  hailed  with  de- 
light by  the  natives,  for  they  had  learned  to  love  and  trust  him  while  he  was 
United  States  minister  at  Havana,  previous  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  Spanish- 
American  War.  On  account  of  his  fearless  and  brave  championship  of  the 
cause  of  humanity  and  justice,  at  that  time,  many  leading  Cubans  regard  his 
influence  as  the  real  power  which  induced  the  United  States  to  come  to  the 
rescue  of  Cuba  in  time  to  save  them  from  utter  destruction.  Later  he  was 
made  Major-General  in  the  regular  service,  and  placed  in  command  of  the 
Department  of  the  Missouri, 


WESLEY  MERRITT 

OUR.  KIRSX  NIILITARY  QOVERNOR  OR  THK  RHILIRPINE^ 

ISLANDS. 

This  distinguished  soldier,  appointed  by  President  McKinley  in  1898  as 
Governor-General  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  although  junior  in  rank  to  General 
Miles,  is  the  senior  of  his  brilliant  chief  by  three  years.  Like  General  Miles, 
Wesley  Merritt  served  with  the  famous  Army  of  the  Potomac  during  the  Civil 
War.  He  commanded  seventeen  regiments  of  cavalry  ;  and  it  was  he  who, 
under  Sheridan  at  Winchester  in  1864,  made  the  celebrated  charge  which  drove 
General  Early  like  a  whirlwind  through  the  valley  of  Shenandoah. 

General  Merritt  is  an  extremely  soldier-like  type  of  man — tall,  broad- 
shouldered,  athletic — and  looks  every  inch  the  fighter  that  his  reputation  claims 
him  to  be.  His  handsome  face  is  surmounted  by  a  thick  crop  of  gray  hair,  he 
has  the  executive  nose,  his  mouth  is  square-cut  and  firm,  his  chin  is  strong  and 
bold,  and  his  eyes,  when  he  is  at  ease,  are  full  of  gentle  kindness,  counteracting 
the  otherwise  stern  expression  of  his  countenance.  General  Merritt  is  strict, 
but  just  and  generous  and  is  greatly  respected  and  beloved,  not  only  by  the  men 
who  serve  under  him,  but  by  the  whole  United  States  Army. 

He  is  one  of  the  few  living  regular  officers  of  great  rank  who,  by  his  presence 
alone,  has  elicited  a  burst  of  cheering  from  regular  troops  while  they  were  on 
parade.  It  was  against  all  precedent  in  time  of  peace,  but  on  the  occasion  that 
General  Merritt  made  his  last  trip  to  Fort  Snelling,  he  reviewed  the  Third  Reg- 
iment, and,  to  the  astonishment  of  Colonel  Page  and  his  officers,  the  men  threw 
discipline  overboard  and  cheered  wildly  while  lined  up  in  battalion  formation. 
The  value  of  this  as  an  evidence  of  sincere  admiration  lies  in  the  fact  that  they 
were  not  cheerinor  for  one  of  their  own  officers,  for  Merritt  was  never  attached 
to  the  Third  or  brought  into  close  contact  with  the  men.  It  was  a  spontaneous 
outburst  of  admiration  for  a  soldier. 

Great  latitude  was  given  General  Merritt  respecting  his  important  command. 
In  absence  of  means  of  communication  with  his  Government,  the  combined  naval 
and  military  campaign  was  put  under  his  absolute  control.  He,  in  fact,  holds 
such  position  under  this  Government  as  that  occupied  by  the  Captain-General 
of  Cuba  under  the  Government  of  Spain. 

Wesley  Merritt  was  born  in  the  State  of  New  York  in  1836,  but  in  early 
life  emigrated  to  the  State  of  Illinois.   That  he  was  a  born  commander  became 

249 


250  WESLEY  MERRITT. 

clearly  evident  early  in  life.  He  was  a  great  reader  of  military  books,  and  when 
he  was  appointed,  in  1855,  ^^  a  cadet  to  West  Point  from  Illinois,  it  was  found 
that  he  was  already  fairly  equipped  as  a  soldier  by  his  general  reading.  When 
young  Merritt  graduated  in  i860  he  was  given  the  brevet  rank  of  Second  Lieu- 
tenant in  Second  Dragoons.  A  year  later  he  was  promoted  to  the  regular  rank 
and  within  three  months  thereafter  was  appointed  First  Lieutenant. 

General  Merritt's  military  career  really  began  when  he  was  made  Captain 
in  the  cavalry  in  April,  1862,  where  he  promptly  displayed  such  abilities  as  a 
leader  of  men  as  attracted  the  attention  of  his  superiors.  There  was  a  su- 
perior dash  to  his  work,  and  during  the  Civil  War  it  was  his  general  great  ca- 
pacity in  handling  men  on  all  sorts  of  occasions  which  distinguished  him,  rather 
than  any  conspicuous  individual  act.  He  was  one  of  the  few  officers  who  on 
their  merits  alone  passed  over  the  intervening  ranks  from  Captain  to  Brigadier- 
General,  which  distinction  he  reached  in  June,  1863,  when  he  was  made  Briga- 
dier-General of  Volunteers  and  attached  to  the  staff  of  General  Sherman. 

This  distinguished  soldier  soon  became  his  close  personal  friend,  and  when 
the  war  closed  honored  his  young  aid  by  declaring  "  Wesley  Merritt  was  the 
cleverest  cavalry  officer  in  the  army."  In  1864  he  was  brevetted  Major-General 
of  Volunteers,  and  a  few  months  later  was  promoted  to  the  honors  of  a  full  Major- 
General,  on  which  occasion  the  whole  army,  volunteer  and  regular,  indulged  in 
vociferous  applause. 

After  the  war  was  over  General  Merritt  was  appointed  Lieutenant-Colonel 
of  the  Ninth  Cavalry,  and  his  frontier  service  began  with  a  command  in  Texas, 
in  which  position  he  served  against  the  Indians  in  the  Southwest.  In  1876  he 
was  put  in  command  of  the  Fifth  Cavalry,  and  his  original  ideas  did  much  to 
establish  the  present  effectiveness  of  the  cavalry  arm.  In  the  winter  of  1879, 
General  Merritt  practically  closed  his  work  in  the  field  by  a  campaign  against 
the  Uintah  Indians,  making  a  record  that  has  stood  ever  since  as  the  standard 
of  speed  for  the  movement  of  mounted  troops.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  he 
by  a  dashing  ride  of  his  cavalry  relieved  Major  Thornburg  at  Fort  Rawlings, 
two  hundred  miles  away,  when  surrounded  by  a  band  of  lipstile  Indians.  Wm. 
F.  Cody,  the  world-famous  "  Buffalo  Bill,"  was  his  scout  and  guide. 

In  1 88 1,  General  Merritt  was  selected  for  the  post  of  Commandant  at  West 
Point,  where  his  executive  ability  was  again  demonstrated  in  the  making  of  a 
new  standard  for  the  Academy.  At  the  close  of  his  services  at  West  Point  he 
was  made  a  Brigadier-General,  and  in  1891  was  sent  to  St.  Paul  to  take  com- 
mand of  the  Department  of  the  Dakotas,  where  he  remained  until  1895,  when 
he  was  made  a  Major-General  and  transferred  to  the  Department  of  the  East, 
and  he  remained  stationed  at  Governor's  Island,  N,  Y.,  until  his  appointment 
as  Commander  of  the  expedition  against  the  Philippine  Islands. 

As  in  the  case  of  Admiral  Dewey,  the  supreme  honor  which  fell  upon  General 


WESLEY  MERRITT.  25, 

Merrltt  was  quite  opportune  ("lucky,"  many  would  say),  coming  as  it  did  so 
short  a  while  before  he  reached  the  aee  of  retirement. 

On  the  25th  day  of  July  General  Merritt  reached  the  Philippines,  whither 
a  large  body  of  United  States  troops  had  preceded  him.  After  a  few  days 
consultation  with  Admiral  Dewey,  a  joint  land  and  naval  attack  was  planned, 
and  surrender  was  demanded  but  declined  by  Governor-General  Augustin. 
August  13th,  the  general  attack  on  Manila  began,  and  by  a  daring  charo-e  of 
the  land  forces,  backed  up  by  a  galling  fire  from  Dewey's  ships,  the  Spaniards 
were  driven  from  trench  to  trench  completely  into  the  walled  city,  and  the 
Spanish  commander  sent  a  note,  requesting  that  firing  should  cease.  At 
4  P.M.  they  had  agreed  to  surrender,  and  at  5.30  Lieutenant  Brumley,  of 
Dewey's  flagship  Olympia,  raised  the  American  flag  over  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral's palace.  In  the  meantime  it  was  discovered  that  the  Governor-General 
had,  some  days  before,  fled  to  Hong  Kong, 

This  battle  took  place  the  day  after  the  protocol  of  peace  had  been 
signed  between  the  United  States  and  Spain,  but  the  cable  having  been  pre- 
viously cut  at  Manila,  no  knowledged  of  the  fact  reached  General  Merritt  for 
some  days  after.  The  military  government  of  the  islands  was  speedily  organ- 
ized and  General  Merritt  was  called  home  to  consult  with  the  President  of  the 
United  States  on  important  matters  concerning  the  future  disposition  of  that 
far-away  new  possession,  and  General  Elwell  S.  Otis  was  appointed  to  succeed 
him  in  command  of  the  army  and  as  Governor  of  the  islands. 

In  view  of  his  knowledge  of  the  situation,  it  was  further  decided  to  send 
General  Merritt  to  Paris  to  advise  with  the  United  States  Peace  Commissioners 
in  conference  with  the  commissioners  of  Spain  at  that  city.  But  some  time 
before  he  was  to  start  on  this  mission,  a  little  sensation  struck  scocial  circles 
when  it  was  learned  that  the  valiant  warrior  had  himself  been  conquered,  as 
Mark  Anthony,  and  many  a  hero,  ancient  and  modern,  had  been,  by  a  piercing 
arrow  from  Cupid's  bow.  Yes,  before  he  went  to  the  Philippines,  the  gallant 
soldier  had  become  engaged  to  a  charming  young  lady  of  Chicago.  What 
could  be  more  natural  or  appropriate,  under  the  circumstances,  than  that 
he  should  marry  at  once  and  take  his  fair  bride  with  him  to  Paris?  That 
is  exactly  what  he  did.  And,  though,  at  the  time.  General  Merritt  was  about 
sixty-two  years  of  age,  neither  his  looks  nor  his  spirits  would  justify  anyone 
in  calling  him  an  old  man.  Having  reached  the  proper  age  he  was  retired 
early  in  1901 


WILLIAM    R.   DAY 


SECRETARY     OK     STATE     DURINO    THE     SRANISH- 

ANIERICAN    WAR. 

On  April  25,  1898 — the  day  that 
war    was    tormally    declared    against 
Spain — the  venerable  John  Sherman, 
on  account  of  the  infirmities  of  age, 
which   he   feared    would    not    permit 
him  to   bear  the   enormous  burdens 
of  the  Secretary  of  State  during  the 
stormy   period   of   war,   resigned   his 
important    position    in    the    Cabinet, 
and   his  acting  first   assistant,  Judge 
William   R.  Day,  was  appointed  his 
successor.     There  was  a  bit  of  pathos 
in  the  occasion  for  the  friends  of  the 
retiring  old   statesman,  as   there  was 
no  doubt  for  Sherman  himself.      He 
was  born  in   Ohio  in  1823.      He  was 
largely  a  self-made  man,  and  his  pub- 
lic  service   had  been  continuous   for 
a  period   of  over  forty  years,  during 
which  time  he  had  filled  many  promi- 
nent positions,  such  as  Congressman, 
Senator,    President    of    the    Senate, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Secretary  of  State,  and  had  also  several  times  been 
close  to  the  nomination  for  President.      But  he,  with   President  McKinley  and 
the  nation,  recognized  that  the  weight  of  seventy-five  years,  coupled  with  bodily 
infirmities,  rendered   his  strength  inadequate  to  the  task   required  of  the  posi- 
tion he  held,  and  with  that  deferential  patriotism  which  should  mark  every 
servant  of  his  country,  he  cheerfully  surrendered  the  honor  to  one  younger 
and  physically  better  able  to  carry  the  burden. 

William  R.  Day  was  born  at  Ravenna,  Ohio,  April  17,  1849.  After  a 
grammar-school  training  he  entered  the  Wisconsin  University,  from  which  he 
graduated  in  1870.  He  subsequently  studied  law  at  the  University  of  Michigan, 
at  the  same  time  serving  that  institution  as  librarian.  In  1872  Mr.  Day  began 
the  practice  of  law  at  Canton,  Ohio,  where  he  met  and  formed  a  friendship  with 
252 


WILLI  \M  R.  LiAY 


WILLIAM  R.  DAY.  253 

William  McKinley,  then  a  rising  young  lawyer  of  that  city,  which  friendship 
ripened  with  association  in  their  professional  duties,  and  the  mutual  esteem  and 
admiration  of  the  two  men  for  each  other  increased  with  advancing  years. 

Mr.  Day's  first  prominent  public  position  was  assumed  in  1886,  when  he 
was  elected  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  of  the  Ninth  District  of  Ohio. 
He  was  afterwards  appointed  by  President  Harrison  United  States  District 
Judge  of  the  Nothern  District  of  Ohio,  and,  though  his  appointment  was  duly 
confirmed  by  the  Senate,  ill-health  compelled  him  to  decline. 

When  the  condition  of  the  Cubans  was  absorbing  the  attention  of  the 
United  States,  prior  to  the  war  with  Spain,  President  McKinley  appointed 
Judge  Day  to  visit  the  island,  thoroughly  investigate,  and  make  a  report  upon 
the  situation  as  he  found  it. 

He  returned  to  the  United  States  after  his  mission  was  accomplished  and 
submitted  his  report,  presenting  the  condition  of  the  islands  and  the  people  with 
a  fairness,  a  clearness,  and  so  complete  in  its  details,  that  he  was  at  once  settled 
upon  as  an  important  man  for  the  State  Department,  and  he  was  chosen 
Assistant  Secretary  of  State  to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  appointment 
of  Mr.  Rockwell  as  Minister  to  Greece.  His  elevation  to  the  chief  place  in  the 
Cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State,  as  has  already  been  cited  above,  took  place  on 
the  day  war  was  declared  against  Spain,  on  April  25,  1898. 

At  the  close  of  the  Spanish-American  War  Secretary  Day  yielded  to  the 
urgent  request  of  President  McKinley  to  take  the  chairmanship  of  the  Peace 
Commission  of  the  United  States,  on  which  were  associated  with  himself 
Cushman  K.  Davis,  of  Minnesota,  William  P.  Frye,  of  Maine,  George  Gray, 
of  Maryland,  and  Whitelaw  Reid,  of  New  York.  The  Commission  went  to 
Paris  in  October,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  with  Spain  in  December, 
which  was  promptly  ratified  by  the  United  States  Congress,  Mr.  Day  returned 
to  America,  and  settled  down  again  to  the  practice  of  law  in  his  old  home  at 
Canton,  Ohio.      Hon.  John  Hay  succeeded  Mr.  Day  as  Secretary  of  State. 

Mrs.  Day  is  a  helpful  wife  who  attunes  her  life  to  that  of  her  husband,  and 
lives  for  him  and  her  children.  So  intense  has  been  this  devotion  that  she  has 
taken  no  leading  part  in  the  social  circles  of  Canton,  though  by  loveliness  of 
character  and  every  grace  of  mind  and  heart  she  is  eminently  fitted  to  do  so. 
She  is  a  tireless  reader,  devouring  and  assimilating,  with  equal  relish  and 
certainty,  fiction,  history,  travel,  biography,  popular  science,  and  sociological 
essays.  She  is  also  an  accomplished  musician,  and  possesses  other  qualifications 
calculated  to  make  the  home  of  her  husband  and  children  the  best  and  happiest 
place  in  the  world  to  them. 


MARY  BALL  AS  A  YOUNG  WOMAN  SPINNING 
rLAX. 


THE  MOTHER 
OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

MARY    BALL. 


If,  indeed,  **the  hand  that  rocks  the 
cradle  rules  the  world,"  what  a  stupen- 
dous debt  of  orratltude  this  nation  and 
humanity  owe  to  the  mother  of  George 
Washington 

But  let  us  not  doubt  that  Mary 
Washington  herself  found  full  compensa- 
tion for  all  shfe  did  to  make  her  son  great 
and  good.  It  is  the  proudest  day  in  any  woman's  life,  if  she  be  true  to  the 
instincts  of  her  sex,  when  she  sees  her  son  exalted  to  an  honorable  position 
among  his  fellows,  and  hears  his  praises  sung  by  mankind.  Mary  Washing- 
ton was  no  exception  to  the  rule.  It  was  a  proud  day  for  her  when  George 
turned  Braddock's  defeat  into  victory  and  the  young  surveyor  became  a  mili- 
tary hero  whose  fame  resounded  over  the  plantations  of  Virginia  and  through 
the  forests  of  the  frontier  of  the  new  world,  and  crossed  the  Atlantic  and  fur- 
nished food  for  comment  at  the  court  of  his  King,  and  came  back  in  marked 
copies  of  the  current  literature  of  the  day. 

It  was  a  prouder  day  for  this  Virginia  farmer's  wife  when  this  country  called 
her  son  to  be  commander-in-chief  of  her  armies,  after  the  King,  who  had  hon- 
ored him,  became  his  enemy.  Washington  knelt,  like  a  giant,  at  his  mother's 
feet  on  that  memorable  occasion,  and,  beneath  the  tears  which  dimmed  her  vision 
as  she  delivered  her  parting  blessing  upon  his  head,  there  was  an  exulting  pride 
which  blushed  like  a  rose  at  her  heart.  Up  to  that  hour  her  son  had  never 
looked  so  grandly  noble  as  when  he  rode  away  on  his  journey  to  Boston  to  take 
command  of  the  Army  of  the  Revolution. 

It  was  a  prouder  day  yet,  when,  after  the  long  seven-years*  war,  Lord 
Cornwallis  had  delivered  his  lordly  sword  into  the  hands  of  her  son,  and  caused 
the  King's  army  to  march  before  him  and  throw  down  their  weapons  ;  and  she 
met  this  long  absent  son  covered  with  glory — the  most  loved  man  of  the  world 

254 


THE  MOTHER  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON,  255 

— at  the  grand  ball  given  in  his  honor.  With  queenly  bearing  she  leaned  upon 
his  great,  strong  arm  and  walked  the  halls  of  that  old  Virginia  mansion  with  a 
dignity  becoming  the  mother  of  some  ancient  god. 

But  the  proudest  day,  perhaps,  in  all  her  life  was  when  they  wanted  to 
make  him  King,  and  he  would  not.  Yet,  for  his  love  and  affection  for  his 
country  and  her  people,  he  consented  to  become,  for  a  limited  period,  the  first 
President  of  the  United  States. 

The  mother's  blessing  at  the  old  home  on  this  occasion  was  more  fervent 
than  when  he  went  away  to  fight  his  country's  batdes  with  musket,  cannon 
and  sword,  and  her  prayers  were  more  earnest,  because  the  task  he  had 
undertaken  was  greater.  The  victories  of  peace  are  harder  to  win  than  the 
victories  of  war.  Therefore  she  prayed  that  the  God  of  Battles  who  had 
spoken  from  the  cannon's  mouth,  and  led  the  sword  of  Washington  to  tri- 
umph over  his  enemies,  would  now  guide  the  hand  and  temper  the  sceptre 
with  which  he  should  rule  his  brethren  in  peace. 

It  was  in  the  blaze  and  glory  of  this,  her  son's  proud  ascendency,  that 
Mary  Washington — mother  of  the  Father  of  his  Country — passed  the  cloud- 
less hours  of  the  gathering  twilight-age  which  ushered  her,  without  an  inter- 
vening night,  from  the  glories  of  time  into  the  glories  of  eternity. 

It  Is  a  matter  of  regret  to  the  admirers  of  Washington — and  who 
is  not? — that  more  of  the  details  of  his  mother's  life  are  not  knowi\.  It  Is 
natural  to  suppose  there  must  have  been  something  extraordinary  in  the 
mother  of  so  great  a  son.  But  we  must  be  content  with  those  scant  incidents 
which  history  furnishes  us.  These  would  never  have  been  known  had  not  the 
greatness  of  her  son  called  them  out,  for  she  was  a  plain  old  Virginia  house- 
wife, as  devoted  to  her  humble  duties  and  as  devoid  of  selfish  ambition,  as  per- 
sistent in  truth,  as  noble,  as  brave,  as  firm  and  uncompromising  in  the  right  as 
Washington  proved  himself  to  be.  These  principles  were  the  keys  to  his 
greatness — and  they,  with  his  qualities  of  mind  and  physical  vigor,  were  a  her- 
itage from  his  mother. 

Before  him  no  Washington  had  achieved  fame,  and  since  his  day  none  of 
the  name  have  acquired  even  a  prominent  reputation. 

His  father,  Augustine  Washington,  was  a  country  gentleman  of  a  vast 
landed  estate,  a  prosperous  farmer,  a  man  of  fortune,  and  the  owner  of  numer- 
ous slaves. 

It  was  during  the  reign  of  Cromwell,  in  1657,  that  John  and  Lawrence 
Washington,  two  brothers,  came  to  America  and  settled  in  Virginia.  The 
English  and  Dutch  slave  ships  were  then  busy  catching  savage  negroes  in 
Africa  and  unloading  them  In  the  slave  markets  of  the  world  at  a  very  low 
price  as  compared  with  their  later  valuation.  Land  was  cheap  and  the  soil 
fertile  along  the  James  and  Potomac  Rivers,  and  the  Washington  brothers  soon 


256  HER  ANCESTORS  AND  EARLY  LIFE, 

established  themselves  upon  vast  estates,  which  they  ruled  with  the  dignity  of 
feudal  lords.  As  population  increased  and  better  markets  came  for  the  prod- 
uce, these  vast  farms  made  their  owners  rich.  Augustine  Washington,  the* 
grandson  of  John  Washington  and  the  father  of  George,  inherited  much  of  his 
father's  and  grandfather's  vast  estates,  and  became  one  of  the  wealthiest 
farmers  in  Virginia. 

Augustine  Washington  lived  near  the  Widow  Ball,  who  had  a  beautiful 
daughter  by  the  name  of  Mary.  She  is  said  to  have  been  always  a  great 
favorite  with  Mr.  Washington.  He  had  known  her  father,  who  died  when  she 
was  a  child.  The  little  girl  was  known  in  the  neighborhood  as  "  Sweet  Molly," 
for  her  amiable  disposition  and  sunny  beauty.  An  old  letter,  under  date  of 
Williamsburg,  October  17th,  1720,  gives  us  the  only  description  of  her  personal 
appearance,  as  at  the  age  of  sixteen  we  find  her 

Standing  with  reluctant  feet, 
Where  the  brook  and  river  meet — 
Womanhood  and  childhood  sweet. 

This  old  letter,  written  from  one  girl  friend  to  another,  we  copy  just  as  It 
has  been  read : 

"Madam  Ball,  of  Lancaster,  and  her  Sweet  molly  have  gone  hom.  Mama 
thinks  Molly  the  Comeliest  Maiden  she  Knows.  She  is  about  sixteen  years 
old,  and  taller  than  Me,  is  verry  Sensable,  Modest  and  Loving.  Her  Hair  is 
like  unto  Flax.  Her  eyes  are  the  Color  of  Yours,  and  her  cheeks  are  like  May 
Blossums." 

Hence,  we  conclude  that  "Sweet  Molly,"  with  all  of  her  beauty,  had  little 
opportunity  to  acquire  an  education  in  the  modern  sense  of  that  term.  She  is 
said  to  have  been  a  bad  speller  and  to  have  read  very  few  books.  Few  of  her 
letters  remain,  and  it  is  possible  very  few  were  ever  written.  The  writing  was 
stiff  and  cramped  and  the  spelling  was  bad.  The  only  one  of  her  girlhood 
which  seems  to  have  been  preserved  was  written  at  seventeen  years  of  age  to 
her  half  brother,  Joseph  Ball,  in  England,  in  which  she  says : 

"We  have  not  had  a  schoolmaster  in  our  neighborhood  until  now  in  four 
years." 

When  Mary  Washington  had  grown  to  womanhood  the  name  of  "Sweet 
Molly"  was  dropped,  and  she  was  christened,  in  the  flowery  language  of  those 
times,  as  "the  Rose  of  Epping  Forest,"  "  Epping  Forest"  being  the  name 
applied  to  their  country  home  and  plantation.  Washington  Irving  calls  her 
"the  Belle  of  the  Northern  Neck,"  that  being  the  designation  for  the  section 
of  country  in  which  they  lived.  Hence,  we  are  justified  in  concluding  that  she 
was  a  beauty,  not  only  the  flower  of  her  home,  but  the  reigning  social  queen 
of  the  community.     The  family  of  Ball  was  an  old  and  an  honorable  one. 


THE  MOTHER  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON.  2^^ 

Their  ancestors  came  to  America  from  England  in  1 650,  seven  years  before  the 
Washingtons,  and  the  two  famihes  had  been  neighbors  for  three-quarters  of  a 
century.  When  Mary  was  twenty-two  years  of  age  she  was  bereft  of  her 
mother,  and  it  is  not  known  positively  whether  she  remained  at  home  after  this 
or  went  to  live  with  her  brother  Lawrence,  a  lawyer,  in  England.  The  only 
foundation  for  the  supposition  that  she  did  go  to  England  is  found  in  a  sino-le 
sentence  of  an  old  letter  from  one  friend  to  another,  written  shortly  after  her 
mother's  death:  "I  understand  that  Molly  Ball  is  going  home  with  her  brother 
Lawrence,  who  lives  in  England."  Upon  this  slender  thread  certain  of  her 
biographers  have  hung  their  statement  that  she  and  Augustine  Washington 
were  most  likely  married  in  England.  Others  maintain  that  she  remained  on 
the  old  homestead,  and  here,  in  the  old-fashioned  Southern  way,  the  beautiful 
Mary  Ball  became  the  wife  of  Widower  Washington,  and  assumed,  with  the 
duties  of  wife,  those  of  stepmother  to  his  four  children.  An  old  family  Bible 
gives  the  record  as  follows :  "  Augustine  Washington  and  Mary  Ball  was  mar- 
ried the  6th  of  March,  1730-31." 

Hence,  we  deem  it  most  probable  that  the  wedding  was  celebrated  on 
March  6th,  1730,  at  "  Epping  Forest,"  in  the  grand  old  Colonial  style  which  re- 
mained a  feature  of  Southern  nuptials  until  within  recent  years.  Let  us  picture 
the  scene  as  the  writer  of  this  sketch  has  witnessed  it  in  his  childhood  days  in 
other  Southern  homes. 

All  the  white  people  for  many  miles  around  were  invited,  and  the  slaves 
were  given  a  grand  holiday.  The  ceremony  occurred  at  the  house  of  the  bride, 
in  the  evening,  and  a  great  wedding  supper  was  spread,  which  days  before  had 
been  spent  in  cooking.  After  that  there  were  music  and  dancing  in  the  "  White 
House  "  or  "  Big  House,"  as  the  master's  house  was  called  by  the  negroes. 
The  porches  and  piazzas  and  the  yard  were  thronged  with  the  joyful  blacks, 
who  made  merriment  on  the  outside,  while  the  iavited  guests  danced  within. 

The  next  day  the  company  were  all  invited  to  go  to  the  house  of  the  groom, 
where  a  great  dinner  was  prepared,  being  served  usually  at  12  or  i  o'clock. 
This  was  called  the  "  Infare  Dinner,"  and  the  joy  of  the  occasion  was  often 
greater  than  that  of  the  wedding  supper. 

Mary  Ball  was  eminently  fitted  for  the  position  she  had  assumed  as  wife 
and  stepmother.  In  a  word,  she  was  a  great  woman.  Subject  her  life  to  what- 
ever side-lights  we  may,  we  find  no  irregularities,  no  painful  contrasts,  no  con- 
tradictions. She  was  a  consistent  Christian,  and  from  beginning  to  end,  through 
eighty-three  eventful  years,  she  was,  in  all  places,  wheresoever  placed,  a  good 
woman. 

As  a  girl  she  had  been  trained,  as  all  children  were  then,  to  do  all  kinds  of 
housework,  cooking  and  spinning,  weaving,  making  dresses  for  themselves,  and 
all  kinds  of  garments.     The  religious  training  was  also  regarded  as  most  im- 


258 


A  PRAYING  MOTHER. 


portant.  Mary  Ball  became  a  church  member  in  early  life.  Her  mother  was 
deeply  pious,  and  her  ancestors  were  Covenanters,  and  all  their  ancestors  were 
strenuous  advocates  of  church  worship,  and  gave  their  means  and  time  to 
building  "meeting-houses."  The  Sabbath  was  the  day  of  all  others  most  filled 
with  important  duties.  There  was  a  solemnity  and  seriousness  about  their  wor- 
ship unknown  in  modern  times.  They  studied  the  Bible  almost  to  the  exclusion 
of  other  literature,  and  the  children  learned  to  repeat  large  portions  of  it  from 
memory.  Such  was  the  early  training  of  Mary  Ball,  now  Mrs.  Washington. 
And  this  is  why  she,  like  the  mothers  of  nearly  all  great  men,  was  a  praying 
woman.  This  is  why  her  Bible  was  her  constant  companion,  its  precepts  ever 
on  her  lips.  This  is  why  she  was  so  silent,  self-respecting,  reserved  and  serious 
a  woman.  She  believed  De  Tocqueville  told  the  truth  when  he  declared  life  to 
be  "a  state  of  neither  pain  nor  pleasure,  but  a  serious  business,  to  be  entered 
upon  with  courage  in  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice."  It  is  doubtful  if  she  ever  read 
De  Tocqueville — or,  indeed,  many  other  books  except  her  Bible,  but  certain  it 
is  that  this  sentence  was  her  definition  of  life,  and  that  it  formed  the  key  in  the 
arch  of  both  her  and  her  son's  great  characters. 

The  home  to  which  Augustine  conducted  his  young  wife  was  one  of  the 
most  comfortable  in  that  section  of  the  country.  The  house  was  situated  on  an 
eminence  about  half  a  mile  from  the  Potomac  River,  and  commanded  a  view  of 
the  Maryland  shore  for  many  miles.  The  dwelling  was  of  frame,  with  a  steep 
roof  which  sloped  down  into  projecting  eaves.  It  was  but  one  story,  and  con- 
tained four  larofe  rooms  and  an  entrance  hall  of  considerable  dimensions.  At 
each  end  of  the  house  on  the  outside  was  an  enormous  chimney.  From  the  river 
the  house  was  an  attractive  one,  and  the  grounds  about  it  were  well  tended  and 
adorned  with  fine  shrubs  and  flowers. 

In  this  pretty  country  home  was  born  on  the  2  2d  of  February  ( 1 1  th  of 
February  old  style,  as  they  then  counted  it),  1732,  George,  the  first  child  of 
Mary  and  Augustine  Washington. 

During  the  next  ten  years  five  other  children,  six  in  all,  were  born  to  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Washington,  all  except  one  living  to  maturity.  When  George  was  six 
years  old  the  family  removed  from  their  Westmoreland  home  to  a  large  tract 
of  land  on  the  Rappahannock  River,  opposite  Fredericksburg.  It  was  not  a 
thickly  settled  portion  of  Virginia  at  the  time,  and  the  Indians,  though  osten- 
sibly friendly,  were  still  a  menace  to  the  settlers.  The  conversation  of  the 
parents,  which  their  little  son  listened  to  with  interest,  was  often  on  this  sub- 
ject, and  it  was  in  this  new  home  that  he  first  exhibited  his  strong  liking  for 
military  life. 

As  said  before,  Mr.  W^ashington  owned  many  slaves,  and  it  required  an 
industrious  housewife  to  manage  and  provide  for  these  and  so  large  a  family. 
The  spinning-wheel  and  the  weaver's  loom,  the   sewing-room  and  the  seam- 


THE  MOTHER  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON.  259 

stresses  required  constant  watching.  There  could  be  no  better  position  for  the 
development  and  cultivation  of  order,  discipline,  habits  of  economy,  and  method 
than  this  one  filled  by  Mrs.  Washington.  But  the  home  was  one  of  plenty  and 
order,  and  there  were  no  grinding  cares  or  pecuniary  anxieties  to  strain  the 
nerves  of  the  wife  and  mother  or  mar  the  contentment  of  the  home  circle.  It 
was  a  very  religious  household  ;  both  father  and  mother  were  members  of  the 
Episcopal  Church,  and  were  strict  observers  of  the  rules  of  their  denomi- 
nation. Family  prayers  were  said  morning  and  evening.  The  Bible  was  read, 
and  the  servants  of  the  household  were  always  present.  The  old  Bible  which 
Mrs.  Washington  read  is  still  preserved,  with  its  curious  old-fashioned  pictures, 
its  yellow  leaves,  and  pencil-marked  pages.  On  the  outside  it  is  covered  with 
a  piece  of  homespun  cloth,  no  doubt  placed  there  by  her  own  hands,  and 
spun  and  woven  in  her  own  home.  Though  it  is  now  faded,  the  blue  and 
buff  checks  —  the  Continental  colors  —  are  plainly  discernible.  The  cover  is 
much  worn  and  has  many  patches  and  darnings  to  preserve  the  sacred  original 
fabric. 

Mr.  Washington  died  at  the  age  of  forty-nine  years,  leaving  his  young 
wife  the  responsibility  of  raising  the  family  and  managing  his  affairs,  for  he 
made  her  his  executrix.  George  was  then  about  eleven  years  old.  He  said 
afterward  that  he  remembered  little  of  his  father,  except  that  he  was  tall  in 
stature,  of  manly  proportions,  fair  complexion,  and  very  fond,  loving,  and  indul- 
gent to  his  children,  but  leaving  their  management  entirely  to  the  mother. 

Mrs.  Washington  found  little  difficulty  in  bringing  up  her  children.  They 
were  disciplined  to  obedience,  and  a  simple  word  was  her  command.  She  was 
not  given  to  any  display  of  petulance  or  rage,  but  was  steady,  well  balanced, 
and  unvarying  in  her  mood.  Not  only  did  her  own  children  look  up  to  her  and 
venerate  her,  but  her  stepchildren  seemed  equally  devoted  and  obedient  to  her, 
as  were  also  the  neighbor  boys  who  came  to  play  with  her  sons. 

That  she  was  dignified,  even  to  stateliness,  is  shown  us  by  the  statement 
made  by  Lawrence  Washington,  of  Chotank,  a  relative  and  playmate  of  George 
in  boyhood,  who  was  often  a  guest  at  he*r  house.  He  says  :  "  I  was  often  there 
with  George — his  playmate,  schoolmate,  and  young  man's  companion.  Of  the 
mother  I  was  ten  times  more  afraid  than  I  ever  was  of  my  own  parents.  She 
awed  me  in  the  midst  of  her  kindness,  for  she  was  indeed  truly  kind.  I  have 
often  been  present  with  her  sons,  proper  tall  fellows,  too,  and  we  were  all  as 
mute  as  mice ;  and  even  now,  when  time  has  whitened  my  locks  and  I  am  the 
grandparent  of  a  second  generation,  I  could  not  behold  that  remarkable  woman 
without  feelings  it  is  impossible  to  describe.  Whoever  has  seen  that  awe-inspir- 
ing air  and  manner  so  characteristic  in  the  Father  of  his  country  will  remember 
the  matron  as  she  appeared  when  the  presiding  genius  of  her  well-ordered 
household,  commanding  and  being  obeyed," 


26o  MANAGEMENT  AND  FORCE  OF  CHARACTER.  \ 

Allied  to  this  spirit  of  command  were  gentle  qualities  which  made  obedi- 
ence to  her  wishes  an  easy  task.  Her  servants  and  slaves  rendered  the  same 
implicit  obedience.  It  is  related  of  her  that  on  one  occasion,  having  ordered  a 
person  in  her  employ  to  do  a  piece  of  work  in  a  certain  way,  she  was  surprised 
to  find  that  he  had  disobeyed  her.  He  explained  that  he  had  a  better  plan, 
when  she  reminded  him  that  she  had  commanded,  and  there  was  nothing  left 
for  him  but  to  obey.  There  was  no  occasion  for  a  second  reprimand  in  that 
direction. 

George  Washington  Parke  Custis,  the  adopted  son  of  Washington,  said  of 
her:  "The  mother  of  Washington,  in  forming  him  for  those  distinguished  parts 
he  was  destined  to  perform,  first  taught  him  the  duties  of  obedience,  the  better 
to  prepare  him  for  those  of  command.  In  the  well-ordered  domicile  where  his 
early  years  were  passed,  the  levity  and  indulgence  common  to  youth  were  tem- 
pered by  a  deference  and  well-regulated  restraint  which,  while  it  curtailed  or 
suppressed  no  rational  enjoyment  usual  in  the  spring-time  of  life,  prescribed 
those  enjoyments  within  the  bounds  of  moderation  and  propriety. 

"The  matron  held  in  reserve  an  authority  which  never  departed  from  her, 
not  even  when  her  son  had  become  the  most  illustrious  of  men.  It  seemed  to 
say,  *  I  am  your  mother,  the  being  who  gave  you  life,  the  guide  who  directed 
your  steps  when  they  needed  the  guidance  of  age  and  wisdom,  the  parental 
affection  which  claimed  your  love,  the  parental  authority  which  commanded  your 
obedience  ;  whatever  may  be  your  success,  whatever  your  renown,  next  to  your 
God  you  owe  most  to  me.'  Nor  did  the  chief  dissent  from  these  truths,  but  to 
the  last  moment  of  the  life  of  his  venerable  parent  he  yielded  to  her  will  the 
most  dutiful,  implicit  obedience,  and  felt  for  her  person  and  character  the  most 
holy  reverence  and  attachment." 

Mrs.  Washington  permitted  her  son  .to  spend  his  holidays  at  Mount  Wash- 
ington, with  his  brother  Lawrence,  and  there  he  was  brought  Into  contact  with 
military  men,  naval  officers,  and  the  captains  of  merchant  vessels.  Thus  George 
conceived  the  idea  of  going  to  sea,  which  was  encouraged  by  Lawrence,  who 
urged  Mrs.  Washington  to  let  him  accept  it.  George  also  petitioned  her,  and 
the  trial  was  a  severe  one  on  her.  She  refused  finally,  on  the  ground  that  there 
was  no  reason  why  her  son  (he  was  then  fourteen  years  of  age)  should  be 
thrown  out  into  the  world  and  separated  so  far  from  his  kindred.  The  profes- 
sion she  objected  to  also  as  one  that  would  take  her  boy  from  her  permanently. 
She  could  not  bring  herself  to  see  that  it  was  to  his  advantage  to  go  to  sea,  and 
we  may  feel  assured  she  made  It  the  burden  of  many  prayers. 

One  of  Washington's  biographers  affirms  that  he  made  up  his  mind  to  ^q 
against  his  mother's  wishes.  "The  luggage,"  he  says,  "of  the  young  aspirant 
for  naval  honors  was  actually  conveyed  on  board  the  little  vessel  destined  to 
convey  him  to  his  new  post,  and  that  when  attempting  to  bid  adieu  to  his  only 


THE  MOTHER  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 


261 


parent  his  previous  resolution  to  depart  was  for  the  first  time  subdued  in  conse- 
quence of  her  ill-concealed  dejection  and  her  irrepressible  tears." 

It  is  hardly  likely  that  this  version  of  the  matter  is  true,  since  her  son  had 
never  in  his  life  exhibited  a  disobedient  spirit,  and  it  is  thought  Lawrence 
Washington's  respect  for  her  would  not  have  permitted  him  to  advise  George 
against  her  wishes  or  pleasure. 

Washington  Irving  says,  after  speaking  of  the  exemplary  manner  in  which 
she  had  reared  her  children  : 

"The  deference  for  her  then   instilled  into  their  minds  continued   tli rough 


MARY  WASHINGTON   HOUSE  AT  FREDERICKSBURG. 

It  was  to  this  house  that  Washington  removed  his  mother  from  the  farm  during  the  Revolutionary  War,  for  safety.  Tt 
was  her  permanent  residence  thereafter,  though  during  her  last  illness  she  was  taken  to  the  home  of  her  diiughter,  Mrs. 
Fielding  Lewis,  where  she  died. 

out  life,  and  was  manifested  by  Washington  when  at  the  height  of  his  power 
and  reputation.  Eminently  practical,  she  had  thwarted  his  military  aspirings 
when  he  was  about  to  seek  honor  in  the  British  navy." 

Though  she  objected  to  his  joining  the  British  navy,  Mrs.  Washington  was 
not  deaf  to  the  call  of  patriotic  duty.  When  the  French  and  Indian  war  broke 
out  George  Washington  received  not  only  his  mother's  consent  but  her  bless- 
ing when  he  made  known  his  desire  to  go.  From  that  time  henceforth  he  was 
with  her  only  on  occasional  visits,  for  he  soon  after  married  an4  settled  at 


262  REMOVAL  TO  FREDERICKSBURG. 

Mount  Vernon,  while  his  mother  remained  on  her  own  farm.  But  that  there 
were  many  meetings  and  visits  back  and  forth  we  are  almost  certain.  Wash- 
ington, we  know,  was  often  a  guest  in  his  mother's  house  at  Fredericksburg. 

When  the  War  of  the  Revolution  broke  out  Washington,  fearing  his  mother" 
would  not  be  safe  on  the  farm,  induced  her  to  remove  to  a  house  in  the  city  of 
Fredericksburg,  where  she  ever  afterward  continued  to  reside.  It  was  here 
he  paid  her,  as  has  been  said,  a  visit  and  received  her  blessing  before  starting 
North  to  assume  command  at  Boston.  W^hen  Benedict  Arnold  with  the  British 
vessels  ascended  the  Potomac  River  and  began  his  devastations  not  far  from 
Fredericksburg,  the  anxiety  of  Washington  for  his  mother  was  very  great. 
When  she  heard  of  it  she  said:  "My  good  son  should  not  be  anxious  about  me, 
for  he  is  the  one  in  danger,  facing  constant  peril.  Tell  him  I  am  safe  enough. 
it  is  my  part  to  feel  most  anxious  and  apprehensive  over  him." 

In  the  long  .years  that  passed  before  she  saw  him  again  he  wrote  her 
repeatedly,  and  lost  no  opportunity  to  relieve  her  mind  of  anxiety  concerning 
him,  but  we  have  no  letters  of  hers  to  him.  The  lavish  praises  bestowed  upon 
him  by  all  who  saw  her  hardly  ever  received  any  other  recognition  than  a  quiet 
reminder  that  Providence  was  orderine  all  thino-s.  For  herself  she  found  her 
self-control  in  prayer,  and  much  of  her  time  was  spent  alone.  When  the  com- 
forting and  glorious  intelligence  of  the  crossing  of  the  Delaware  (December, 
1776)  arrived,  a  number  of  her  friends  waited  upon  the  mother  with  congratu- 
lations. She  received  them  with  calmness,  observed  that  it  was  most  pleasur- 
able news,  and  that  George  appeared  to  have  deserved  well  of  his  country  for 
such  signal  service,  and  continued  In  reply  to  the  gratulating  patriots  (most  of 
whom  held  letters  in  their  hands,  from  which  they  read  extracts,  for  gazettes 
were  not  so  plenty  then  as  now),  "but,  my  good  sirs,  here  is  too  much  flattery; 
still,  George  will  not  forget  the  lessons  I  early  taught  him  ;  he  will  not  forget 
filmself,  though  he  is  the  subject  of  so  much  praise." 

The  surrender  of  Cornwallls  at  Yorktown  was  the  auspicious  event  that 
hastened  their  reunion.  A  messenger  was  sent  to  apprise  her  of  the  fact,  and 
as  soon  as  possible  public  duties  were  laid  aside  and  Washington  visited  her, 
attended  by  his  staff.  She  was  alone,  her  aged  hands  employed  in  the  works 
of  domestic  industry,  when  the  good  news  was  announced,  and  it  was  further 
told  that  the  victor-chief  was  In  waiting  at  the  threshold.  She  bade  him  wel- 
come by  a  warm  embrace  and  by  the  well-remembered  and  endearing  name  of 
George — the  familiar  name  of  his  childhood.  She  inquired  as  to  his  health, 
remarked  the  lines  which  mighty  cares  and  many  toils  had  made  on  his  manly 
countenance,  spoke  much  of  old  times  and  old  friends,  but  of  his  glory  not  one 
word. 

His  presence  in  Fredericksburg  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  all  classes.  For 
the  first  time  In  nearly  seven  years  mother  and  son  met,  and  it  maybe  imagined 


THE  MOTHER  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON, 


263 


that  her  heart  rejoiced  over  the   meeting.     She  was  then  over  seventy  years  of 
age,  erect  and  well  preserved. 

The  foreign  officers  were  anxious  to  see  the  mother  of  their  chief.  They 
had  heard  indistinct  rumors  touching  her  remarkable  life  and  character,  and 
expected  to  see  in  her  that  glitter  and  show  which  would  have  been  attached  to 
the  parents  of  the  great  in  the  countries  of  the  Old  World.  How  they  were 
surprised  when,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  her  son,  she  entered  the  room,  dressed 
in  the  very 
plain  yet  be-' 
coming  garb 
worn  by  the 
Virginia  lady 
of  the  old 
time !       Her 


THE  MOTHER  OF  WASHINGTON  RECEIVING 
MARQUIS  LAFAYETTE. 

address,  always  dignified  and  imposing,  was 
courteous,  though  reserved.  She  received  the 
complimentary  attentions  which  were  paid  to 
her  without  evincing  the  slightest  elevation,  and  at  an  early  hour,  wishing  the 
company  much  enjoyment  of  their  pleasure,  observed  that  it  was  high  time  for 
old  folks  to  be  in  bed.  and  retired,  leaning  as  before  on  the  arm  of  her  son. 
More  than  one  famous  artist  has  reproduced  this  scene  In  steel  engravings  and 
oil  paintings. 

The   matron's   simple   grace   won   all   hearts.     The   foreign   officers  were 
amazed  In  beholding  one  whom  so  many  causes  conspired  to  elevate  preserving 
16  s  &  D 


264  RECEIVING  MARQUIS  LAFAYETTE. 

the  even  tenor  of  her  Hfe  while  such  a  blaze  of  glory  shone  upon  her  name  and 
offspring.  It  was  a  moral  spectacle  such  as  the  European  world  furnished  no 
examples.  Names  of  ancient  lore  were  heard  to  escape  from  their  lips,  and 
they  declared,  "If  such  are  the  matrons  in  America,  well  may  she  boast  of  illus- 
trious sons.''  It  was  on  this  festive  occasion  that  General  Washington  danced  a 
minuet,  the  dance  much  in  vogue  at  that  period,  with  Mrs.  Willis.  This,  his  biog- 
raphers inform  us,  was  the  last  dance  in  which  the  hero  of  Yorktown  ever  engaged. 

George  Washington  Parke  Custis  also  tells  us  this  characteristic  incident, 
which  we  give  in  his  words  : 

"Previous  to  his  departure  for  Europe,  In  the  fall  of  1784,  the  Marquis  de 
Lafayette  repaired  to  Fredericksburg  to  pay  his  parting  respects  to  Washing- 
ton's mother  and  to  ask  her  blessing. 

"  Conducted  by  one  of  her  grandsons  he  approached  the  house,  when,  the 
young  gentleman  observing,  '  There,  sir,  is  my  grand  nother,'  the  Marquis  be- 
held, working  in  her  garden,  clad  in  domestic-made  clothes  and  her  gray  head 
covered  by  a  plain  straw  hat,  the  mother  of  'his  hero,  his  friend,  and  a  country's 
preserver.'  The  lady  saluted  him  kindly,  observing,  '  Ah,  Marquis,  you  see  an 
old  woman  ;  but  come,  I  can  make  you  welcome  to  my  poor  dwelling  without 
the  parade  of  changing  my  dress.' 

"  Much  as  Lafayette  had  seen  and  heard  of  the  matron  before,  on  this  inter- 
esting interview  he  was  at  once  charmed  and  struck  with  wonder.  When  he 
considered  her  great  age,  the  transcendent  elevation  of  her  son,  who,  surpassing 
all  rivals  in  the  race  of  glory,  'bore  the  palm  alone,'  and  at  the  same  time  dis- 
covered no  change  in  her  plain  yet  dignified  life  and  manners,  he  became  assured 
that  nature  had  not  cast  this  distinguished  woman  in  an  ordinary  mould,  and 
that  the  Roman  matron  could  flourish  in  the  modern  day. 

"The  Marquis  discoursed  of  the  happy  effects  of  the  Revolution  and  the 
goodly  prospects  which  opened  upon  regenerated  America,  spoke  of  his  speedy 
departure  for  his  native  land,  paid  the  tribute  of  his  heart  in  his  love  and  ad- 
miration of  her  illustrious  son,  and  concluded  by  asking  her  blessing.  She  gave 
it  to  him,  and  to  the  encomiums  which  he  had  lavished  upon  his  hero  and  pa- 
ternal chief,  she  replied  in  these  words :  '  I  am  not  surprised  at  what  George 
has  done,  for  he  was  always  a  very  good  boy.'  " 

But  the  most  beautiful  as  well  as  the  most  pathetic  of  all  the  scenes  in  the 
lives  of  the  illustrious  chief  and  his  venerable  mother  is  the  following,  given 
also  as  related  by  Mr,  Custis  : 

"Immediately  after  the  organization  of  the  present  Government,  the  Chief 
Magistrate  repaired  to  Fredericksburg  to  pay  his  humble  duty  to  his  mother, 
preparatory  to  his  departure  for  New  York.  An  affecting^  scene  ensued.  The 
son  feelingly  remarked  the  ravages  which  a  torturing  disease  had  made  upon 
the  aged  frame  of  the  mother,  and  addressed  her  with  these  words:   *The 


THE  MOTHER  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON.  26 

people,  madam,  have  been  pleased,  with  the  most  flattering  unanimity,  to  elect 
me  to  the  Chief  Magistracy  of  these  United  States,  but  before  I  can  assume  the 
functions  of  my  office  I  have  come  to  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell.  So 
soon  as  the  weight  of  public  business  which*  musf  necessarily  attend  the  outset 

of  a  new  Government  can  be  disposed   of,  I  shall  hasten   to  Virp-inia    and * 

Here  the  matron  interrupted  with,  •  And  you  will  see  me  no  more  ;  my  great 
age,  and  the  disease  which  is  fast  approaching  my  vitals,  warn  me  that  I  shall 
not  be  long  In  this  world ;  I  trust  in  God  that  I  may  be  somewhat  prepared  for 
a  better.  But  go,  George,  fulfil  the  high  destinies-  which  Heaven  appears  to 
have  intended  for  you;  go,  my  son,  and  may  that  Heaven's  and  a  mother's 
blessing  be  with  you  always.' 

"The  President  was  deeply  affected.  His  head  rested  upon  the  shoulder  of 
his  parent,  whose  aged  arm  feebly,  yet  fondly,  encircled  his  neck.  That  brow 
on  which  fame  had  wreathed  the  purest  laurel  virtue  ever  gave  to  created  man 
relaxed  from  its  lofty  bearing.  That  look  which  could  have  awed  a  Roman 
Senate  in  its  Fabrician  day  was  bent  in  filial  tenderness  upon  the  time-worn 
features  of  the  aged  matron.  He  wept.  A  thousand  recollections  crowded 
upon  his  mind,  as  memory,  retracing  scenes  long  passed,  carried  him  back  to 
the  maternal  mansion  and  the  days  of  juvenility,  where  he  beheld  that  mother, 
whose  care,  education  and  discipline  caused  him  to  reach  the  topmost  height  of 
laudable  ambition.  Yet,  how  were  his  glories  forgotten  while  he  gazed  upon 
her  whom,  wasted  by  time  and  malady,  he  should  part  with  to  meet  no  more ! 
Her  predictions  were  but  too  true.  The  disease  which  so  long  had  preyed 
upon  her  frame,  completed  its  triumph,  and  she  expired  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
five,  rejoicing  in  the  consciousness  of  a  life  well  spent,  and  confiding  in  the 
belief  of  a  blessed  immortality." 

Another  biographer  tells  us  that  as  Washington  left  his  aged  parent  on 
the  above  memorable  occasion  he  pressed  into  her  hand  a  purse  filled  with 
gold.  She  handed  it  back,  saying,  in  kindly  remonstrance,  "I  don't  need  it,  my 
son.  I  have  enough."  "Let  me  be  the  judge  of  that,  mother;  whether  you 
need  it  or  not,  keep  it  for  my  sake,"  and  the  chief  strode  off  to  conceal  his 
emotion,  while  she,  with  tearful  eye,  stood  in  the  door  and  watched  him  walk 
away.     It  was  the  last  time  her  eyes  beheld  him  on  earth. 

To  the  last  year  of  her  life  Mrs.  Washington  clung  to  her  household 
duties  and  superintended  her  farm.  She  lived  in  the  town  of  Fredericksburg, 
where  she  had  removed  durino-  the  Revolution,  but  her  farm  across  the  river 
was  her  charp-e,  even  when  she  had  to  be  driven  in  her  carriaee  over  the 
ploughed  ground.  Her  daughter,  Mrs.  Fielding  Lewis,  lived  near  her  on  her  in- 
herited portion  of  the  old  farm,  and  it  is  said  Mrs.  Washington  made  almost 
daily  visits  to  this  home,  frequently  walking  over  in  the  morning  and  having  her 
carriage  come  for  her  in  the  afternoon.     In  her  old  age,  it  is  said,  she  carried  a 


266  ,        OLD  AGE  AND  DEATH. 

gold-headed  cane,  and,  as  she  passed  through  the  streets  of  Fredericksburg, 
everyone,  from  the  gray-haired  old  man  to  the  thoughtless  boy,  lifted  his  hat  to 
the  mother  of  Washington. 

To  Mrs.  Lewis's  and  George  Washington's  repeated  invitations  to  give 
up  her  home  and  live  with  them  she  would  always  say:  "  I  thank  you  for  your 
affectionate  and  beautiful  offers,  but  I  feel  perfectly  competent  to  take  care  of 
myself."  During  her  last  years,  Mr.  Fielding  Lewis,  her  son-in-law,  urged 
upon  her  to  give  up  looking  after  the  farm  and  let  him  attend  to  it  for  her.  She 
replied :  "  I  thank  you.  Fielding.  You  may  keep  my  books  in  order,  for  your 
eyesight  Is  better  than  mine,  but  leave  the  executive  management  of  my  farm 
to  me."  The  good  old  woman  was  also  an  Inveterate  knitter.  Wherever  she 
went  she  took  her  knitting  with  her,  and,  as  she  talked,  the  needles  were  ever 
flying  In  her  nimble  fingers.  During  the  war,  with  her  daughter  and  their  ser- 
vants, dozens  of  pairs  of  socks  were  knitted  and  sent  to  "George"  In  camp, 
for  distribution,  together  with  other  garments  and  provisions,  the  fruits  of  her 
thrift,  Industry  and  economy. 

Mrs.  Washington  died  on  the  25th  of  August,  T789.  For  some  cause  un- 
known to  the  writer,  her  death  occurred  at  the  home  of  her  daughter,  Mrs. 
Lewis.  No  doubt  In  her  last  illness  she  yielded  to  her  daughter's  entreaties  to 
remain  at  her  house,  where  she  might  give  her  constant  attention.  She  was 
eighty-five  years  of  age,  and  had  been  a  widow  forty-six.  Her  disease  was 
cancer  of  the  breast.  It  had  preyed  upon  her  for  years,  but  she  concealed  It 
even  from  her  children  until  within  a  few  months  of  her  death.  This,  It  Is 
thought,  was  her  reason  for  refusinof  to  live  with  her  children,  to  whom  she  was 
much  attached. 

There  was  a  place  between  her  home  In  Fredericksburg  and  the  house  of 
her  daughter  where  she  Is  said  to  have  repaired  almost  daily  for  meditation  dur- 
ing the  latter  years  of  her  life,  and  there  she  often  knelt  In  prayer  to  Him  alone 
on  whom  she  was  willing  to  depend.  Her  grandchildren  said  they  never  dis- 
turbed her  when  they  saw  her  there.  For  many  years  she  had  expressed  a 
desire  to  be  burled  in  this  sacred  spot,  and  here,  in  accordance  with  her  wish, 
she  was  laid  to  rest. 

Her  estate  was  left  free  from  all  debt.  The  place  was  sold  and  the  pro- 
ceeds divided  among  her  children.  Washington  refused  to  take  anything  except 
such  as  he  could  keep  as  mementoes  of  parental  afTection,  on  which,  he  said,  "I 
set  a  value  much  beyond  their  intrinsic  worth." 

"Thus  lived  and  died,"  says  G.  W.  Parke  Custis,  "this  distinguished  woman.. 
Had  she  been  of  the  olden  time,  statues  would  have  been  erected  to  her  memory 
in  the  capital,  and  she  would  have  been  called  the  Mother  of  Romans." 

Ah,  so  it  would  have  been,  indeed !  And  why  should  America  have  so 
long  neglected  her?     The  grave  of  Mary  Washington  for  nearly  half  a  century 


THE  MOTHER  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 


267 


remained  without  even  a  marble  slab  to  mark  the  spot.  Finally  a  patriotic  citi- 
zen, Silas  E.  Burrows,  Esq.,  of  New  York,  undertook  at  his  own  expense  to 
erect  a  monument  to  the  long-neglected  heroine.  The  corner-stone  was  laid  by 
President  Andrew  Jackson  on  the  7th  day  of  May,  1833,  i^i  the  presence  of  his 
Cabinet  officers,  representatives  of  the  army  in  uniform,  Masonic  orders  in 
regalia,  and  a  vast  concourse  of  people  estimated  at  15,000  souls.  Prayer  was 
offered  by   Rev.  E.  C.  McGuire.      Mr.  Bassett,  of  the   Monument   Committee, 

delivered  an  eloquent  address 
to  the  President,  describing  the 
character  of  her  whom  they  had 
met  to  honor,  and  placed  in  his 
hand  an  inscribed  tablet,  with 
the  request  that  he  deposit  it 
in  the  corner-stone.  The  reply 
of  Jackson  was  characteristic, 
short,  and  eloquent.  Taking 
the  plate  in  his  nervous  hand — 
a  hand  that  never  trembled 
when  it  grasped  a  sword — the 
"  Old  Hickory"  chief  said,  with 
a  voice  quivering  in  its  emo- 
tion : 

"  Fellow-citizens,  at  your 
request  and  in  your  name  I 
now  deposit  this  plate  in  the 
spot  destined  for  it."  Then, 
straightening  himself  to  his  full 
military  height  and  pointing  his 
hand  at  the  stone,  he  raised  his 
voice  into  clarion  notes  and 
proclaimed  to  the  multitude, 
"  When  the  American  pilgrim 
shall  in  after  ages  come  to  this 
high  and  holy  place  and  lay  his 
hand  upon  this  sacred  column,  may  he  recall  the  virtue  of  her  who  sleeps  beneath 
and  depart  with  his  affections  purified  and  his  piety  strengthened  while  he 
invokes  blessings  upon  the  memory  of  the  mother  of  Washington." 

It  is  sad  to  relate  that  the  monument  thus  commenced  by  the  patriotic  Bur- 
rows was  not  finished,  nor  is  it  the  one  that  now  stands  over  the  grave.  The 
obelisk  and  the  bust  of  Washington,  by  which  it  was  to  be  surmounted,  were 
not  completed  when  Mr.  Burrows,  after  providing  the  necessary  funds  and  pay- 


THE  NEW  MARY  WASHINGTON  MONUMENT, 
FREDERICKSBURG,  VIRGINIA. 


268  THE  NEW  MARY  WASHINGTON  MONUMENT. 

ing  for  it  in  full,  left  the  work  in  the  hands  of  contractors  and  went  away  to 
Hong  Kong,  China,  where  he  engaged  in  business.  The  contractors  took  ad- 
vantage of  his  absence  and  delayed  the  work.  Mr.  Burrows  finally  died,  and 
according  to  a  statement  made  by  his  grandson  at  the  unveiling  of  the  new 
monument  May  loth,  1894,  "the  contractors  simply  did  not  finish  the  work, 
though  they  had  received  the  money."  Burrows  died  and  was  forgotten,  but 
this  mute,  dilapidated  monument  still  stood  in  Fredericksburg,  moss-grown  and 
crumbling  into  ruin,  above  the  grave  of  Mary  Washington.  Beside  it  lay  the 
granite  obelisk  waiting  for  the  sculptor's  chisel  to  fashion  it  and  for  patriotic 
hands  to  lift  it  to  its  place. 

This  old  monument  stood  for  nearly  two-thirds  of  a  century.  During  the 
great  Civil  War  it  was  immediately  between  the  lines  of  the  Northern  and 
Southern  armies.  It  is  said  that  the  commanders  of  artillery  on  both  sides 
directed  the  gunners  to  aim  their  pieces  so  that  no  shot  could  possibly  strike 
the  monument,  and  that  this  command  was  obeyed  so  implicitly  that  not  a  stone 
of  it  was  loosened  from  its  place,  while  around  it  the  blood  of  Northerner  and 
the  blood  of  Southerner  fertilized  the  ground  and  consecrated  it  a  shrine  to 
liberty. 

In  May,  1894,  105  years  after  the  death  of  this  noble  woman,  whom  all  the 
nation  and  all  the  world  delight  to  honor,  a  new  monument  was  unveiled  to 
her  memory  near  the  spot  where  the  old  neglected  ruin  had  so  long  stood.  It 
is  of  granite,  and  stands  eleven  feet  square  at  the  base  and  is  fifty  feet  high. 
On  one  side  is  the  inscription  "  Mary,  the  Mother  of  Washington,"  and  on  the 
opposite  side  "  Erected  by  her  countrywomen.''  The  monument  was  unveiled 
with  imposing  ceremonies  on  the  loth  of  May,  1894,  and  all  Americans  rejoice 
to  see  this  fitting  tribute  of  respect  paid  by  American  women  to  her  who  gave 
to  America  the  noblest  of  sons — the  peerless  Washington. 


DOLLY  MADISON  SAVING  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 


AMERICA'S  MOST  GRACIOUS  SOCIAL  QUEEN, 


"DOLLY"     MADISON 


Theodore  TiLTON  said; 
'  I  once  watched  an  artist 
while  he  tried  to  transfer  to 
liis  canvas  the  lustre  of  a 
precious  stone.  His  picture, 
after  his  utmost  skill,  was 
dull." 

Such  the  writer  feels  his 
'effort  must  be  in  trying  to 
paint  the  picture  of  Dolly 
Madison — a  radiant  and 
sparkling  woman,  full  of 
beauty,  wit,  reason  and  hero- 
ism— she  was  a  whole  crown 
of  jewels.  A  poor  opaque 
copy  of  her  is  the  most  that 
one  can  render  in  a  bio- 
L-^raphical  sketch.  She  was 
ihe  only  woman  who,  for 
sixteen  years,  through  four 
Presidential  terms,  held  sway 
as  the  social  queen  at  our 
National  Capital,  and  for 
many  years  thereafter  she 
was,  perhaps,  the  most  es- 
teemed and  feted  woman  in 
Washington. 

It  was  in  the  State  of 
North  Carolina,  on  the  20th 
of  May,  1772,  that  a  litde  May  blossom  came  into  the  home  of  John  and  Mary 
Payne.  They  were  good,  religious  people.  Their  home  was  a  simple  old 
Southern  mansion,  and  they  owned  a  number  of  slaves  and  distributed 
Southern  hospitality  according  to  the  generous  customs  of  the  times. 

269 


MRS.  JAMES  MADISOX 

(DOLLY  PAYNE). 

From  an  original  picture  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 


270 


AMERICAS  MOST  GRACIOUS  SOCIAL  QUEEN. 


They  named  the  little  comer  "  Dorothy."  We  do  not  know  if  John  and 
Mary  Payne  were  at  that  time  Quakers.  Accounts  differ.  If  so,  the  first  sight 
which  greeted  little  Dorothy's  eyes  was  the  Quaker  cap  and  sweet,  sad  face  of 
her  mother,  and  her  father's  yet  more  solemn  countenance  and  straight-brimmed 
Quaker  hat.  Had  these  been  all  she  saw,  felt  and  heard  in  her  infancy,  how 
different  might  her  life  have  been  !  But  her  eyes  and  ears  were  open  to  every 
beauty  and  every  voice  of  nature. 

Even  in  childhood  her  buoyant  spirits  bubbled  and  gushed  out  from  under 
her  Quaker  cap,  and  her  friends  ceased  to  call  her  Dorothy.  "  Dolly"  suited 
her  better.  Years  came,  and  "Sweet  Dolly"  everybody  said  when  they 
referred  to  her;  and  when  she  entered  the  White  House,  "Queen  Dolly"  was 
the  only  title  good  enough  for  the  gracious  lady. 

The  parents  of  Mrs.  Madison  were  native  Virginians,  and,  though  born 
in  North  Carolina,  she  claimed  for  herself  also  the  honor  of  being  a  grand- 
daughter of  the  Old  Dominion,  a  title  dear  to  all  its  possessors.  Her 
parents  removed  to  Philadelphia  in  Dolly's  childhood,  and,  if  they  had  not 
done  so  before,  they  now  joined  the  Society  of  Friends,  and  John  Payne, 
her  father,  freed  all  his  slaves,  this  law  having  been  enacted  in  1774  by  the 
Society  of  Friends.  By  this  religious  denomination  no  graceful  accomplish- 
ments were  deemed  necessary  to  a  girl's  education.  Jewelry,  dancing  and 
music  and  all  light-heartedness  and  gayety  were  forbidden  by  the  tenets  of  their 
faith.  As  a  dutiful  daughter,  Dolly  regretfully  submitted  to  the  will  of  her 
parents.  Attired  in  the  close-fitting  dress  of  her  order,  she  would  demurely 
attend  to  the  duties  imposed  upon  her,  and  the  wonderful  undertone  of 
sweetness  in  her  character  kept  the  brow  serene  and  the  heart  ever  bright 
and  hopeful.  But  nothing  could  conceal  her  beautiful,  genial,  sunny  char- 
acter. Nor  could  the  quaint  bonnet  of  the  Friends  hide  her  sparkling  eyes 
and  the  perfectly  rounded  features  from  the  admiring  gaze  of  her  young 
acquaintances.  Nor — shall  we  say  it? — could  any  restraint  check  the  joyful 
flow  of  spirit  in  Dolly,  nor  her  love  of  what  the  Friends  called  "carnal 
pleasures." 

At  last,  when  Dolly  was  eighteen  years  of  age,  that  mischievous  son  of 
Venus,  with  his  bow  and  arrow,  who,  by  his  enchantments,  is  able  to  conceal 
himself  in  mysterious  ways  and  places,  tied  two  arrows  together  with  a  long 
silken  cord.  One  he  shot  straight  from  his  bow  into  the  heart  of  John  Todd,  a 
young  lawyer  of  good  estate,  and  the  other  he  aimed  with  unerring  precision 
straight  to  the  heart  of  sweet  Dolly  Payne.  There  was  no  help  for  it  now ; 
they  were  fastened  by  this  silken  strand  of  fate. 

The  proper  John  Todd  was  not  permitted  by  the  custom  of  the  Friends  to 
go  at  once  to  Dolly,  but  he  began  to  court  the  father.  He  heaped  many  favors 
on  him,  and  finally  gained  Mr.  Payne's  permission  to  approach  the  winsome 


PARENTS  A  ND  GIRLHOOD.  2  7 1 

Dolly.     In  the  language  of  one  of  her  biographers,  let   us  tell  the  story  of  this 
and  another  later  love  which  came  to  brighten  the  life  of  "  Queen  Dolly." 

In  true  Quaker  fashion,  John  Todd  pressed  his  suit  and  asked  her  hand. 

"I  never  mean  to  marry,"  was  the  demure  reply. 

Her  father  was  more  persuasive,  and  soon  John  Todd  bore  away  a  bride. 
For  three  years  she  lived  the  secluded  life  of  a  proper  Quaker  matron,  and 
became  the  mother  of  two  babies  ;  then  the  yellow  fever  was  epidemic  in  Phila- 
delphia. John  Todd  sent  away  Dolly  and  her  babies,  but  lingered  himself  to 
do  what  a  man  and  a  Christian  miorht.  When  he  knew  the  fever  to  be  burnino- 
in  his  veins  he  followed  his  wife,  with  the  cry,  "  I  must  see  her  once  more."  In 
a  few  hours  he  was  dead,  and  soon  Dolly  and  a  baby  lay  battling  with  the  fever. 
When  the  disease  was  stayed,  Dolly,  with  one  baby,  went  home  to  her  mother, 
now  widowed. 

The  married  years  had  turned  the  shy  girl-bride  into  a  beautiful  woman. 
Men  would  station  themselves  where  they  might  see  her  pass.  Her  com- 
panion maid  often  said:  "Really,  Dolly,  thou  must  hide  thy  face,  there  are  so 
many  staring  at  thee."  It  was  on  one  of  these  walks  that  her  bright  beauty 
first  flashed  upon  Madison.  Its  effect  is  shown  by  a  note,  written  the  next  day 
by  Dolly : 

"  Dear  Friend  :  Come  to  me.  Aaron  Burr  says  the  great-little  Madison 
has  asked  to  be  brought  to  see  me  this  evening."  Dolly  was  in  mulberry  satin, 
silk  tulle,  with  curls  creeping  from  beneath  the  dainty  Quaker  cap,  brimming 
with  fun  and  sparkling  with  wit.  Soon  a  strange  rumor  spread  through  the 
city.  The  President  and  Mrs.  Washington  shared  in  the  amusing  surprise,  and, 
to  be  assured,  sent  for  Dolly.     "Is  it  true?"  asked  Mrs.  Washington. 

In  the  same  manner  with  which  she  had  once  answered  John  Todd,  she 
said,  "  No,  I  think  not."  Confusion  and  blushes  told  the  tale  she  would  hide, 
and  Mrs.  Washington  bade  her  "not  be  ashamed  ;"  it  was  "an  honor  to  win  a 
man  so  great  and  so  good ;  he  will  make  thee  a  good  husband,  and  all  the  bet- 
ter for  being  so  much  older.  We  both  approve  of  it.  The  esteem  and  friend- 
ship existing  between  Mr.  Madison  and  my  husband  is  very  great,  and  we 
would  wish  thee  to  be  happy."  Soon,  with  her  child,  sister,  and  maid,  she  was 
driven  from  the  city  in  an  open  barouche,  and  the  "  Father  of  the  Constitu- 
tion," mounted,  rode  at  her  side.  At  the  home  of  her  sister,  who  married  a 
nephew  of  Washington,  she  became  Mrs.  Madison.  Guests  came  from  far  and 
near,  and  the  merry-making  went  on  for  days.  That  love  had  transformed  the 
man  is  proved  by  the  young  girl  guests  daring  to  cut  bits  of  Mechlin  lace  from 
his  shirt  ruffles  as  mementoes. 

Party  spirit  never  ran  so  high,  but  in  the  drawing-room  of  Mrs.  Madison, 
under  her  gracious  tact,  men  who  would  meet  at  no  other  place  forgot  their 
bitterness.     She  made  foes  friends.     Her  civilities  were  never  influenced  by 


272  AMERICA'S  MOST  GRACIOUS  SOCIAL  QUEEN. 

party  politics,  and  at  her  social  board,  where  she  dispensed  her  lavish  hospi- 
tality with  quiet  dignity  and  elegance  of  manner,  the  subject  was  never  men- 
tioned. 

The  step  to  the  White  House  was  only  what  might  be  called  her  corona- 
tion. When  she  was  congratulated  on  her  husband's  occupation  of  it,  with  her 
ready  wit  she  answered :  "I  don't  know  that  there  is  much  cause  for  congratu- 
lation. The  President  of  the  United  States  generally  comes  in  at  the  iron  gate 
and  goes  out  at  the  weeping  willows."  At  that  time  there  was  a  side  entrance, 
a  stone  archway,  with  a  weeping  willow  on  each  side  of  it. 

Whatever  the  end  was  to  be,  the  beginning  was  very  brilliant.  Mrs.  Madi- 
son, in  buff  velvet  and  bird-of-paradise  plume,  looked  and  moved  a  queen.  Mad- 
ison was  very  pale  and  more  solemn  than  usual.  Jefferson  was  all  life  and 
exhilaration.  The  Embargo  and  troubles  with  France  and  England  might  lead 
him  under  the  willows,  but  then  he  had  taught  the  Bashaw  of  Tripoli  manners, 
which  all  Europe  had  failed  to  do.  The  purchase  of  Louisiana  was  his  crown  of 
glory,  and  Martha,  grandchildren,  and  Monticello  were  before  him. 

Now  there  was  a  Republican  Court  in  earnest.  Drawing-rooms  were  held, 
which  were  never  dull  nor  tiresome.  Washington  Irving  would  have  it  that  he 
met  there  the  "merry  wives  of  Windsor."  Dinners  were  given,  which  the  Eng- 
lish Minister  in  derision  called  harvest-home  feasts.  Mrs.  Madison  would 
smile,  thank  God  for  abundance,  and  the  unllkeness  of  her  court  to  that  of  the 
shamefully  dissolute  one  of  the  Regent  of  England.  She  returned,  like  Mrs. 
Adams,  all  visits  paid  her,  and  organized  "dove  parties,"  composed  of  the  wives 
of  Cabinet  officers  and  foreign  Ministers,  which  were  very  gay  and  popular. 
She  had  high-bred  airs  and  refinement,  was  beautiful  in  form  and  features, 
always  richly  and  elegantly  dressed,  as  became  her  position.  At  her  marriage, 
by  her  husband's  request,  she  laid  aside  the  Quaker  dress,  retaining  only  the 
dainty  cap,  which  "was  very  becoming,  but  even  that  was  put  aside  in  the  Ex- 
ecutive Mansion.  The  Quakers  charg-ed  her  with  "an  undue  fondness  for  the 
things  of  this  world;"  but  by  her  sweetness  and  affability  she  retained  their 
favor.  She  was  remarkable  for  rarely  forgetting  a  name,  would  even  remem 
ber  little  incidents  connected  with  her  guests. 

The  first  term,  which  had  passed  for  Mrs.  Madison  in  unclouded  happiness, 
was  drawing  to  a  close.  It  was  said  that  Jefferson  chose  his  own  successor,  but 
he  had  passed  the  Government  to  him  with  Pandora's  box  wide  open,  and  had 
also  reduced  the  means  of  stamping  out  the  evils  which  had  escaped  and  were 
working  bitter  results.  George  III.  was  harmless  in  his  padded  cell,  but  his  son, 
who  resembled  him  in  everything  but  his  virtues,  retained  the  old  Ministry,  and 
a  heavy  hand  was  laid  upon  the  new  and  struggling  nation. 

The  war  of  1812  came  on.  The  British  offered  bounties  for  American 
scalps.     Battles  on  the  Canadian  border  were  fought  with  varying  fortunes  to 


THE  FIRST  LADY  OF  THE  LAND.  273 

land  forces  and  brilliant  victories  to  our  ships.  General  Jackson  defeated  and 
destroyed  the  Creek  Nation.  Attempts  were  made  to  invade  Canada,  but  in 
vain,  and  the  British  tried  as  vainly  to  enter  the  United  States.  The  British 
had  blockaded  and  ravished  the  Atlantic  coast  from  North  to  South.  Light- 
houses only  benefited  the  enemy,  and  the  lighting  of  lamps  was  forbidden. 

Meantime  Queen  Dolly's  court  went  gaily  on  at  the  capital,  undisturbed, 
until  the  crowning  humiliation  of  the  war  came  when  the  British  sailed  up  the 
Potomac  and  burned  Washington,  August  24th,  18 14.  For  several  days  before 
ofrave  fears  had  been  entertained.  Our  soldiers  and  fleet  were  in  the  North 
and  East,  where  the  war  was  raging,  and  our  National  Capital  was  unprotected. 
Suddenly  the  news  was  spread,  "  Cockburn,  the  marauder,"  is  coming  up  the 
Chesapeake  Bay  to  attack  the  capital.  "What!"  exclaimed  General  Armstrong, 
Secretary  of  War,  "the  enemy  attack  Washington?  Nonsense!"  This 
quieted  the  fears  of  the  people,  and  little  preparation  was  made  to  defend 
the  city. 

Suddenly,  on  the  morning  of  August  19th,  a  horseman  dashed  through  the 
villages  forty  miles  below  the  capital  shouting,  "To  arms  !  to  arms  !  Cockburn 
is  comlnpf  I"  It  was  true,  Cockburn  and  Ross  had  landed  with  5000  men  and 
were  marching  for  the  capital.  Stirring  appeals  were  made,  and  citizens  at 
home  were  quickly  congregated  for  defence,  and  these,  under  General  Winder, 
were  expected  to  drive  back  the  marauders.  General  Armstrong  had  no  doubts 
of  its  being  done.  But  they  drew  nearer.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  2 2d  Presi- 
dent Madison  bade  his  wife  good-by  and  hurried  to  the  front  to  join  General 
Winder.  Scarcely  had  he  taken  his  departure  when  news  came  that  the  Ameri- 
can ships  below  the  city  had  been  destroyed  to  prevent  their  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  enemy,  and  the  latter  were  in  close  proximity  to  the  capital.  Mrs. 
Madison  now  for  the  first  time  manifested  fear.  Her  husband  was  in  danger. 
The  work  of  saving  records  was  now  inaugurated.  All  day  and  all  night  the 
work  went  on.  Every  one  was  busy  and  every  available  conveyance  was  called 
into  requisidon.  Drays,  wagons,  and  wheelbarrows  were  loaded  with  the 
precious  documents. 

A  hurried  note  from  the  President  came :  "Thank  Heaven,  he  is  safe!" 
But  it  said :  "  Be  ready  at  any  moment  to  enter  your  carriage  and  leave  the 
city.  The  Bridsh  may  destroy  it."  Busy,  nervous  haste,  flying  servants  and 
mistress  everywhere  gathered  Madison's  papers  and  records  together  and  packed 
them  in  as  many  trunks  as  her  carriage  would  hold. 

Excitement  gn-w  more  intense.  In  the  outskirts  of  the  city  a  skirmish  was 
in  progress.  With  eager  eyes  from  an  upper  window  Mrs.  Madison  scanned  the 
field  with  a  glass.  She  could  see  the  moving  troops,  but  could  not  distinguish 
individuals.  Night  came.  The  firing  ceased.  Friends  urged  her  to  fly.  She 
would  not  until  she  heard  from  her  husband.     Morning  came,  and  its  twilight 


274  AMERICAS  MOST  GRACIOUS  SOCIAL  QUEEN. 

found  her  at  the  window  with  her  glass.  The  fighting  was  resumed.  Clifford 
Howard  thus  describes  this  critical  day  in  our  nation's  history  with  Dolly  Madi- 
son as  a  central  figure  : 

"In  great  alarm  and  amid  the  gloomiest  forebodings  Mrs.  Madison  awaited 
the  return  of  the  President.  Two  messengers,  covered  with  dust  and  exhausted 
with  heat,  arrived  at  the  White  House,  and,  breathlessly  informing  her  of  the  fate 
that  had  overtaken  the  Americans,  implored  her  to  leave  the  place  at  once. 
Bidding  them  make  good  their  own  escape  she  still  refused  to  go,  determined 
to  brave  her  situation  to  the  last  in  the  hope  of  her  husband's  return. 

"  In  the  mean  time  she  resolved  to  save  the  famous  life-size  portrait  of  Gen- 
eral Washington  that  hung  in  one  of  the  rooms.  Finding  the  task  of  unscrew- 
ing it  from  the  wall  too  tedious  a  process  for  such  perilous  moments,  she  ordered 
one  of  her  servants  to  break  the  heavy  gilt  frame  with  an  axe,  and  then  with  her 
own  hands  removed  the  canvas.  Scarcely  had  this  been  accomplished  when  the 
sounds  of  rapidly  approaching  troops  were  heard,  and  the  same  instant  two  gen- 
tlemen, bent  upon  urging  her  immediate  flight,  entered  the  room.  *  Fly  !  Fly 
at  once,  madam  !'  they  exclaimed ;  *  the  British  are  upon  us  !'  The  time  for 
her  departure  had  come  ;  to  remain  longer  would  be  useless,  '  Save  that  pic- 
ture !'  she  cried,  addressing  her  two  friends.  '  If  you  cannot  save  it,  see  that 
it  is  destroyed  ;  but  remember,  under  no  circumstances  allow  it  to  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  enemy.' 

"It  was  at  this  moment,  just  as  she  was  in  the  act  of  hurrying  away,  that 
Dolly  Madison  was  seized  with  an  inspiration  that  ever  will  cause  her  name  to 
live  in  the  heart  of  every  true  American.  She  stopped  to  think  that  she  had 
packed  up  all  of  the  valuable  personal  and  official  papers  of  the  President.  The 
records  were  safe.  Was  there  anything  more  ?  What  if  the  White  House 
should  be  burned  ?  Did  it  contain  anything  of  value  to  the  Government  that 
she  had  neglected?  The  Declaration  of  Independence  !  In  a  flash  she  called 
to  mind  this  most  precious  of  all  documents.  Carefully  treasured  in  a  case 
apart  from  the  other  papers,  it  had  been  overlooked  in  the  worriment  and  con- 
fusion. It  must  be  saved  at  all  hazards  !  Without  a  moment's  hesitation  she 
turned  and  rushed  back  into  the  house. 

"  'Stop  !  for  Heaven's  sake,  stop  !*  cried  her  friends,  vainly  endeavoring  to 
intercept  her.  Regardless  of  their  commands,  regardless  of  her  danger,  the 
brave  woman  sped  to  the  room  containing  the  treasure  for  which  she  was  willing 
to  sacrifice  her  life.  Without  attempting  to  open  the  glazed  door  of  the  case, 
she  shattered  the  glass  with  her  clenched  hand,  snatched  the  priceless  parch- 
ment, and  waving  it  exultantly  above  her  head  hurried  to  the  door,  where  she 
entered  her  carriage  and  was  rapidly  driven  away  in  the  direction  of  George- 
town. 

*'  Learning,  however,  that  the  British  had  not  yet  entered  the  town,  she  com- 


SAVING  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  275 

pelled  her  terrified  coachman  to  return  toward  the  White  House,  in  the  hope  of 
finding  the  President.  Great  was  her  joy  when  she  beheld  him  proceeding 
along  the  road  on  horseback,  accompanied  by  several  gendemen,  on  his  way 
from  the  White  House,  whither  he  had  gone  to  assure  himself  of  her  safety. 
He,  like  hundreds  of  others,  was  a  forlorn  fugitive,  anxiously  seeking  a  place  of 
refuge.  Accompanying  him  and  his  party  to  the  river,  where  they  embarked  for 
the  Virginia  shore,  Mrs.  Madison  set  off  toward  a  point  several  miles  up  the 
river,  where  it  was  planned  she  and  the  President  should  meet  the  next  day. 
So  crowded  was  the  roadway  with  retreating  troops,  horses,  and  wagons  that 
she  was  frequendy  obliged  to  leave  her  carriage  and  tramp  through  the  heat 
and  intolerable  dust,  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  rough  soldiers  and  negroes,  who 
rudely  pushed  her  aside  and  insulted  her  with  coarse  and  angry  remarks.  Suf- 
fering greatly  and  thoroughly  exhausted  with  the  hardships  of  the  day,  she 
bravely  continued  her  unhappy  flight  until  quite  late  in  the  evening,  when,  over- 
come with  fatigue,  she  took  shelter  in  a  farm-house,  where  she  remained  all  night. 

"  The  last  glimmer  of  twilight  was  fading  away  when  into  the  well-nigh-de- 
serted city  rode  the  redoubtable  Cockburn  at  the  head  of  his  band  of  marauders. 
Elated  at  their  decisive  victory  over  a  force  nearly  twice  as  large  as  their  own, 
and  thirsting  for  spoils,  the  red-coated  soldiers  marched  triumphantly  toward 
the  Capitol.  Suddenly  from  the  window  of  a  house  came  the  report  of  a  mus- 
ket, and  the  horse  General  Ross  rode  dropped  dead.  '  Fire  the  house  !'  shouted 
Cockburn,  and  the  next  moment  it  was  in  fiames. 

"  Heedless  of  the  remonstrances  of  General  Ross,  who  was  averse  to  such 
methods,  the  invaders  followed  the  lead  of  their  Admiral  and  rushed  toward  the 
Capitol.  This  imposing  pile,  standing  upon  the  brow  of  a  hill  overlooking  the 
city  in  every  direction,  was  even  at  that  early  period  of  its  construction  a  build- 
ing of  unusual  magnificence.  Discharging  their  firearms  at  the  windows  the 
reckless  soldiers  burst  in  the  doors  and  with  a  wild  shout  of  triumph  carried 
their  leader  to  the  Speaker's  chair,  from  which  with  mock  gravity  he  put  the 
question,  *  Shall  this  harbor  of  the  Yankee  democracy  be  burned  ?'  A  yell  of 
affirmation  rang  through  the  hall,  and  without  further  preliminaries  papers  and 
other  combustibles  were  piled  under  the  desks  and  set  on  fire.  In  a  few  min- 
utes this  noble  edifice,  that  had  been  in  course  of  construction  more  than  twenty 
years,  and  containing  the  library  of  Congress  and  vast  quantities  of  official  docu- 
ments of  great  historical  value,  was  enveloped  in  a  seething  mass  of  flames  that 
shot  up  into  the  sky  in  unmistakable  proclamation  of  the  awful  fate  that  had 
come  upon  the  capital  of  the  nation. 

"  Now  thoroughly  aroused  to  their  work  of  plunder,  a  howling  crowd  of  the 
desperate  marauders  hurried  to  the  White  House  in  the  hope,  perchance,  of 
capturing  the  President  and  his  wife.  Finding  the  house  locked  and  deserted, 
they  battered  down  the  doors,  and,  consoling  themselves  for  the  loss  of  their 


276 


AMERICA'S  MOST  GRACIOUS  SOCIAL  QUEEN. 


distinguished  captives  by  a  ruthless  destruction  of  the  furniture,  they  raided  the 
larder  and  regaled  themselves  with  a  hastily  prepared  feast  in  the  state  dining- 
room.  Then,  destroying  the  remaining 
provisions  and  ransacking  the  place 
from  garret  to  basement,  breaking  and 
mutilating  whatever  they  could  readily 
lay  their  hands  on,  they  concluded  their 
visit  by  setting  fire  to  the  home  of  the 
President.       Fanned    by    the   gust  of  a 


BURNING  OF   WASHINGTON. 

coming  storm,  the  fires  that 
had  been  kindled  in  all  direc- 
tions burned  and  spread  with 
increasing  fury,  lighting  up 
the  streets  with  a  glare  more 
brilliant  than  that  of  day,  and 
revealing  in  ghastly,  lurid  dis- 
tinctness the  forms  of  the 
marauders  revelling  amid 
their  horrible  work  of  devas- 
tation. As  though  infected 
with  the  evil  spirit  of  destruction,  the  elements  raged  with  increasing  fierce- 
ness until  the  next  day,  when  a  terrific  hurricane  completed  the  ruin. 


RETURNING  TO  WASHINGTON. 


277 


"Overawed  at  the  terrible  devastation  wrought  by  their  hands  and  the  forces 
of  nature,  the  British  stole  silently  forth  from  the  city  on  the  night  of  the  25th 
of  August  and  beat  a  hasty  retreat  to  their  bhips.  Slowly  and  mournfully  the 
hopeless  inhabitants  returned  to  their  desolate  homes.  According  to  appoint- 
ment, the  President  had  rejoined  Mrs.  Madison  at  a  small  tavern  about  sixteen 
miles  from  the  city  on  the  day  following  the  invasion.  At  first  Mrs.  Madison 
had  been  refused  entrance,  and  it  was  only  the  breaking  of  the  storm  that 
finally  induced  those  who  had  taken  refuge  in  the  house  to  grant  her  entrance, 
though  not  without  gross  insults  and  much  remonstrance.  Leaving  this  place 
in  disguise,  and  accompanied  only  by  a  friend  and  one  soldier,  she  reached 
Washington  on  the  night  of  the  26th.  She  stopped  a  moment  to  gaze  at  the 
smouldering  ruins  of  her  once  beautiful  home  and  then  drove  to  the  house  of 
her  sister,  where  she  awaited  the  President,  who  was  returning  by  another 
route,  having  left  her  again  the  day  before  upon  learning  that  the  British  had 
discovered  his  hiding-place  and  were  in  pursuit  of  him. 

"American  pride  and  determination  built  again  the  city  that  Cockburn  had 
burned,  but  never  could  they  have  replaced  that  priceless  parchment  which  the 
noble  Dolly  Madison  bravely,  gladly  risked  her  life  to  save." 

At  last  the  war  was  over,  and,  though  her  husband's  reputation  had 
seriously  suffered,  the  last  years  of  Queen  Dolly's  reign  were  more  dazzling 
than  ever,  and  the  troubled  AdVninistration  closed  amid  social  pyrotechnics 
unknown  before  her  time,  if,  indeed,  they  have  been  equalled  since.  She 
seemed  to  invest  the  city  itself  with  a  courtly  tone,  and  something  of  a 
royal  flavor  clung  to  the  manners  and  presence  of  all  social  events  which  she 
managed. 

On  retiring  from  the  Presidency,  Madison,  like  Washington,  repaired  to 
his  country  estate  at  Montpelier,  where  he  and  his  charming  wife  dispensed  old 
Virginia  hospitality.  So  much  loved  was  Mrs.  Madison  that  not  only  her 
country's  best,  but  distinguished  guests  abroad  came,  and  simple  country  people 
begged  the  privilege  of  seeing  her,  which  she  never  denied  them.  One  farmer's 
wife  came  from  a  distance  and  asked  to  kiss  her,  that  her  daughters  might  tell 
of  it  in  years  to  come. 

Death  came  for  the  old  President  in  the  form  of  a  lingering  illness.  For 
eiofht  months  she  watched  and  nursed  him  with  tender  care,  and  when  the  end 
came  (on  the  28th  of  June,  1836,  in  the  eighty-sixth  year  of  his  age),  she 
arranged  his  letters  and  manuscripts  for  publication.  At  length  she  returned 
to  Washington  to  be  among  her  old  friends,  and  it  was  always  an  honor  to  be 
a  guest  where  she  was  present.  She  was  so  popular  that  when  she  offered  the 
manuscripts  and  letters  of  her  husband  for  sale,  both  parties  in  Congress,  out 
of  compliment  to  her,  voted  to  purchase  them,  and  paid  her  thirty  thousand 
dollars  for  them.     They  also  voted  her  the  franking  privilege.     Another  vote 


278  AMERICA'S  MOST  GRACIOUS  SOCIAL  QUEEN. 

gave  her  a  seat  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  a  mark  of  favor  and  esteem  no  other 
woman  ever  enjoyed  from  our  nation. 

The  press  of  the  country  went  so  far  as  to  accuse  Cong-ress,  as  a  body,  of 
flirting  with  Mrs,  Madison.  But  since  every  man,  woman  or  child  who  met  her, 
either  in  youth  or  age,  fell  in  love  with  her,  no  editor  who  knew  "Queen 
Dolly"  had  any  censure  against  Congress  for  favoring  her.  She  was  the  hon- 
ored guest  of  succeeding  Presidents  as  long  as  she  lived.  When  the  great 
cannon,  "Peacemaker,"  exploded  on  the  "Princeton,"  killing  and  wounding 
many,  she  was  on  board  as  the  guest  of  President  Tyler,  and,  preserving  her 
presence  of  mind  while  others  were  fainting  about  her,  she  assisted  heroically 
in  the  care  of  the  wounded,  soothed  their  friends,  and  went  home,  where  she 
found  a  host  of  friends  had  preceded  her,  anxious  to  learn  of  her  own  safety. 
She  appeared  before  them  smiling,  but  pale  as  death,  and  begged  them  not 
to  ask  her  to  speak  of  the  awful  scene,  and  she  was  never  afterward  known 
to  mention  it. 

The  last  years  of  her  long  and  happy  life  were  saddened  by  the  dissolute 
habits  of  her  only  son,  Payne  Todd,  for  whom  President  Madison  had  often 
paid  debts,  and  she  was  finally  forced  to  sell  Montpelier  to  save  him  from  fur- 
ther disgrace.  With  a  sore  and  grieved  heart  over  this  one  cloud  on  the  sky 
of  her  life,  she  died,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two,  in  Washington,  July  12th,  1849, 
the  name  of  this  dissolute  son,  whom  she  called  her  "poor  boy,"  on  her  dying 
lips.  Her  funeral  was  attended  by  a  large  concourse  of  people,  and  her 
remains  were  taken  to  Montpelier  and  laid  beside  those  of  her  husband. 

Two  years  later  typhoid  fever  carried  this  disgraceful  son  away.  The 
faithful  servants  of  his  mother,  for  her  sake,  tended  him  in  his  illness,  and  they, 
alone,  followed  him  to  his  grave. 


THE  TWO  GOOD  HOTHERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 

NANCY    HANKS    AND    SARAH    JOHNSTON. 


"  Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 

The  dark,  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean  bear ; 
Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen, 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air." 

— Gray. 


Of  the  childhood  and  girlhood  of  Lin- 
coin's  mother  we  are  unable  to  speak  in  any 
degree  of  detail.  She  is  described  as  being 
at  the  time  of  her  marriage  a  "  slender,  sym- 
metrical woman,  of  medium  stature,  and  a 
brunette,  with  dark  hair,  regular  features,  and 
soft,  sparkling  eyes,  and  of  a  remarkably 
vivacious  and  sociable  nature."  Abraham 
Lincoln,  however,  did  not  remember  her  as 
thus  described.  At  the  earliest  of  his  recol- 
lection her  form  was  bent  with  hard  work  and 
her  countenance  marked  by  the  deep  lines 
of  care  and  sadness. 

.  It  is  also  well  known  that  both  Thomas 
Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks  were  born  in  Vir- 
ginia. The  father  of  Thomas  Lincoln  was  a 
Pennsylvania  Quaker ;  it  is  therefore  evident  that  Abraham  came  of  good 
stock,  and  had  his  father  been  an  energetic,  ambitious  man,  the  family  would 
have  lived  in  very  different  circumstances.  Perhaps  the  worst  that  may  be  said 
of  Thomas  Lincoln  is  that  he  did  not  realize  his  responsibilities  ;  that  he  was 
lazy,  improvident,  and  neglected  his  family,  as  has  been  said,  "  to  an  extent  that 
a  more  enlightened  man  would  have  considered  criminal."  But  it  was  from 
this  improvident  father  that  Lincoln  perhaps  inherited  his  conversational  powers 
and  habit.  Like  his  greater  son,  the  improvident  carpenter  was  an  entertaining 
and  incessant  talker,  possessing  an  inexhaustible  fund  of  anecdotes.  This  made 
him  popular,  and  he  is  said  to  have  "preferred  above  all  things  to  sit  in  a  group 
of  familiar  spirits  and  tell  jokes."  Young  Abraham  early  learned  this  accom- 
plishment, and  notwithstanding  the  deep  vein  of  sadness  which  dominated  his 
nature,  he  was  always  able  to  put  a  barrier  between  the  world  and  himself 
through  the  medium  of  humor. 


SARAH  JOHNSTON, 
The  good  stepmother  of  President  Lincoln. 


17   S&D 


279 


28o  THE  TWO  GOOD  MOTHERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Thomas  Lincoln  was  a  carpenter,  If  we  may  dignify  such  a  poor  workman 
by  a  trade-name,  for  it  does  not  appear  that  he  ever  advanced  further  in  the 
art  of  this  trade  than  to  be  able  to  put  together  a  rude  frontier  cabin  table  or 
bedstead.  No  doubt  he  was  what  was  called  a  "  handy  man  "  at  the  backwoods 
"house  raisings,"  where  four  men  in  a  single  day,  standing  on  the  four  corners, 
would  lay  the  foundation  and  notch  up  the  walls  of  a  log  cabin,  which  was  then 
the  style  of  the  prevailing  residence  on  the  frontiers  of  Kentucky.  The  one 
excitement  of  his  life,  in  which  he  frequently  indulged,  was  moving.  He  had  a 
mania  for  changing  his  home,  which  he  did  whenever  the  thought  occurred  to 
him.  He  was  also  fond  of  hunting,  fishing,  and  other  idle  sports  which  took 
him  away  from  work  and  threw  him  into  the  congenial  company  where  his  story- 
telling proclivities  always  made  him  popular. 

We  have  told  so  much  of  the  character  of  Lincoln's  father  In  order  that  it 
might  the  more  appear  that  for  all  greatness  of  soul,  energy,  and  true  nobleness 
of  life  Abraham  Lincoln  was  indebted  to  his  mother.  Nancy  Hanks  was  not  only 
endowed  by  nature  with  many  excellent  qualities,  but  she  was  far  more  intelli- 
gent than  the  majority  of  those  about  her,  and  in  spite  of  her  limited  opportu- 
nities possessed  considerable  education,  together  with  a  rare  intuitive  faculty, 
and  a  highly  developed  sympathetic  nature,  all  of  which  were  eminently  charac- 
teristic of  her  great  son.  Dr.  Holland  says  of  her:  '*She  had  much  in  her 
nature  that  was  truly  heroic  and  much  that  shrank  from  the  rude  life  around 
her.  A  great  man  never  drew  his  infant  life  from  a  purer  or  more  womanly 
bosom  than  hers." 

It  is  a  national  shame  that  slanderous  foes,  led  by  Lamon  and  Herndon, 
at  one  time  circulated  the  report  that  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks  were 
never  married.  We  mention  this  only  for  the  purpose  of  setting  at  rest  the 
minds  of  all  those  who  have  read  or  heard  this  shameful  slander.  That  they  were 
married  is  as  well  authenticated  as  any  positive  court  record  could  make  it. 
The  marriage  license  is  on  file  at  the  Washington  County  Court  House  in 
Kentucky.  As  was  customary  In  those  days,  a  bond  was  given  In  advance  of 
the  marriage,  which  was  duly  recorded  on  the  court  records.  This  bond  is 
recorded  on  the  loth  day  of  June,  1806,  announcing  that  Thomas  Lincoln  and 
Nancy  Hanks  soon  intended  to  marry,  and  a  license  was  issued.  The  mar- 
riage occurred  duly  thereafter,  on  the  23d  day  of  September,  1806,  and  the 
ceremony  was  performed  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Head,  a  Methodist  minister,  who 
was  also  a  cabinetmaker  at  Springfield,  Kentucky,  the  same  minister  who  thirteen 
years  after  preached  at  Mrs.  Lincoln's  funeral.  The  young  couple  were  poor, 
but  very  popular,  and  among  others  at  the  wedding  was  ludge  Felix  Grundy, 
who  subsequently  removed  to  Nashville,  Tennessee,  and  later  became  Attorney 
General  of  the  United  States.  These  positive  facts  should  forever  brand  and 
disprove  the  vile   slander  circulated  against  the  good  name  of  the  greatest 


BIRTH  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


281 


American  who  has  lived  since  the  days  of  George  Washington.  Every  true 
American  will  agree  with  Dr.  C.  C.  Graham,  of  Louisville,  Kentucky,  that  "the 
mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  entitled  to  vindication  and  veneration  from  every 
American  citizen  who  loves  his  country  and  to  whom  the  fame  and  glory  of  its 
greatness  is  dear.  She  deserves  as  well  and  is  entided  to  as  much  honor  at 
our  hands  as  the  mother  of  Washington,  for  she  gave  us  as  great  and  as  good 
a  man.  Let  the  chivalry  of  every  true  man  in  the  land  feel  and  resent  as  a 
personal  indignity  the 
brutality  of  him  who 
would  endeavor  to  cast 
a  reproach  upon  Lin- 
coln's mother." 

Two  and  one-half 
years  after  the  marriage 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln 
their  only  son  Abraham 
was  born,  on  the  12th 
of  February,  1S09,  in 
a  district  of  Hardin 
County  now  included  in 
La  Rue  County,  Ken- 
tucky. 

Dickens  has  made 
all  the  world  his  confi- 
dant in  the  particulars 
of  his  poverty-stricken 
and  unappreciated  in- 
fancy and  childhood. 
Lincoln,  who  endured 
exquisite  anguish  on  the 
same  account,  would 
gladly  have  died  and 
made  no  sign  of  the 
suffering  he  had  passed 
through.  The  long,  long  rainy  day  of  poverty  and  want  did  not  end  with  him 
as  with  the  novelist,  and  he  had  not  the  pleasure  of  lifting  his  mother  from 
her  toils  and  burdens  and  putting  her  where  she  would  realize  the  happiness 
she  deserved.  She  died  of  that  most  terrible  enemy  of  the  poor,  consump- 
tion, and  left  her  desolate  little  boy  alone  in  his  misery  when  only  ten  years 
old.  He  was  her  only  living  child,  and  about  him  centred  every  ambition  of 
her  dreary  life.     She  could  read  and  write — an  accomplishment  which  her  hus- 


"PTp-' 


|<«*y* 


^. 


THE  PilRTHPLACE  OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 


282  THE  TWO  GOOD  MOTHERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

band  did  not  possess — and  she  taught  her  little  child  his  letters,  and  by  slow 
degrees  to  learn  to  spell,  and  then  to  read.  It  was  an  absorbing  task  for 
him,  for  the  cabin  in  which  they  lived  afforded  him  no  comforts,  and  he  had 
no  amusements.  His  mother's  attention,  denied  him  too  much  because  of  the 
hard  work  she  performed,  was  the  sweetest  boon  he  coveted,  and  to  lean 
against  her  knee  or  to  sit  beside  her  and  laboriously  wrestle  with  the  sound 
of  letters  and  the  spelling  of  words  was  a  priceless  pleasure  to  him. 

Compared  to  the  mental  poverty  of  those  about  her,  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  a 
prodigy  of  learning,  and  her  husband  and  relatives  were  alike  proud  of  her. 
She  held  herself  aloof  from  many  of  her  husband's  friends,  and  had  he  pos- 
sessed a  tithe  of  her  pride  and  energy,  the  early  home  of  the  future  President 
of  the  United  States  might  have  been  a  pleasant  memory  to  him  in  later  years, 
instead  of  a  depressing  and  sorrowful  recollection.  Had  Mrs.  Lincoln  lived, 
her  child's  life  would  have  been  different,  but  as  it  was,  she  laid  so  sure  a  foun- 
dation in  his  nature  that  he  owed  to  her,  more  than  to  any  other  human  being, 
his  finest  traits  of  character. 

She  died,  after  a  long  illness,  in  October,  1818,  and  left  her  child  wretched, 
not  only  in  feeling  but  in  condition.  He  was  old  for  his  age,  and  during  her 
prolonged  suffering  he  was  her  constant  attendant,  and,  while  her  greatest  com- 
fort, was  at  the  same  time  her  one  anxious  thought.  How  to  leave  him  alone 
in  the  world  was  the  added  anguish  of  her  dying  hours.  Her  great  love  for 
him,  and  his  clinging,  helpless  dependence  upon  her,  his  sick  mother,  made  her 
last  days  pathetic;  and  their  sad  condition  has  been  fittingly  expressed  by 
Robert  Buchanan  in  these  lines:  ♦ 

"Oh,  bairn,  when  I  am  dead, 

How  shall  ye  keep  frae  harm  ? 
What  hand  shall  gie  ye  bread  ? 

What  fire  will  keep  ye  warm  ? 
How  shall  ye  dwell  on  earth  awa'  frae  me?" 

'' Oh,  mither,  dinna  dee  !"' 

"  Oh,  bairn,  it  is  but  closing  up  the  een, 

And  lying  down  never  to  rise  again, 
Many  a  strong  man's  sleeping  hae  I  seen ; 

There  is  nae  pain  ! 
I'm  weary,  weary,  and  I  scarce  ken  why ;  . 

My  summer  has  gone  by. 
And  sweet  were  sleep  but  for  the  sake  o'  thee." 

"  Oh,  mither,  dinna  dee  ! 

The  loneliest  year  of  his  life  had  scarcely  passed  when  the  boy's  father 
married  again,  and  his  mother's  place  was  taken  by  a  kind-hearted  woman  who 
brightened  the  child's  existence  from  the  day  she  set  foot  into  the  cheerless 


A   WISE  AND  AFFECTIONATE  STEPMOTHER.  283 

cabin   of  Thomas    Lincoln.     She    took   an   instant  and   especial  liking   to   the 
neg-lected  boy,  and  won  in  return  his  permanent  affection. 

*  *  *  :i:  -i'  -i'  :'::  -Jf  tj: 

Mrs.  Johnston,  Thomas  Lincoln's  second  wife,  was  a  widow,  whom  he  had 
known  when  they  were  both  children  in  Kentucky,  and  she  went  with  him  to  his 
Western  home,  carrying  with  her  a  son  and  two  daughters  of  her  own.  She 
opened  her  heart  to  the  ragged  little  boy,  who  gladly  welcomed  her  cheerful 
presence  to  his  comfortless  home. 

When  Abraham  Lincoln  first  saw  her  she  was  young  and  cheerful,  and  full 
of  energy  and  determination.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  loved  her  so 
warmly.  She  made  his  hard  life  easier,  and  her  influence  over  his  father  greatly 
improved  the  aspect  of  affairs  at  home.  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  as  energetic  and 
industrious  as  her  husband  was  otherwise,  and  she  had  a  difficult  task  before 
her  when  she  married.  She  had  been  greatly  disappointed  in  her  new  home, 
having  been  led  to  believe  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  well-to-do  farmer  in  Indiana, 
whereas  he  was  not  a  farmer,  but  lived  in  great  poverty,  and  gained  what  little 
support  he  made  by  doing  odd  jobs  and  working  for  the  surrounding  farmers. 

Mrs.  Lincoln's  fondness  for  the  tender-hearted,  lonely  little  boy  enabled 
her  to  read  his  character  speedily,  and  she  soon  discovered  that  he  had  much 
natural  ability  and  a  strong  desire  to  learn.  As  he  grew  older  she  said  of  him 
that  "he  read  every  book  he  could  lay  his  hand  on,  and  when  he  came  across  a 
passage  that  struck  him,  he  would  write  it  down  on  boards  if  he  had  no  paper, 
and  keep  it  there  until  he  did  get  paper.  Then  he  would  rewrite  it,  look  at  it, 
repeat  it.  He  had  a  copy-book,  a  kind  of  scrap-book,  in  which  he  put  down  all 
things,  and  thus  preserved  them." 

Mrs.  Lincoln  must  have  been  a  wise  mother,  because  she  successfully  man- 
aged her  own  children  and  her  stepson,  and  the  affectionate  relations  existing 
between  them  were  remarkable.  There  was  nothing  that  Abe  would  not  do  for 
his  stepsisters  or  his  mother,  and  they  in  turn  gave  him  the  tenderest  affection. 

These  daughters,  after  they  were  grown  up  and  married,  made  their  new 
homes  Abe's,  and  he  was  better  loved  by  them  than  was  their  own  brother,  a 
young  man  who  gave  his  mother  much  trouble. 

The  daughters,  when  speaking  of  their  distinguished  stepbrother  after  his 
tragic  death,  invariably  referred  to  his  affection  for  their  mother,  and  of  how 
worthy  she  was  of  everyone's  love.  Lincoln's  youth  was  brightened  by  her 
companionship,  and  when  he  left  home,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  to  care  for 
himself,  the  pain  he  felt  was  in  leaving  his  stepmother. 

The  first  money  he  earned  he  sent  her  a  share  of,  and  as  long  as  she 
lived  he  continued  to  provide  for  her  comfort,  though  much  of  the  money  he 
sent  was  used  by  those  who  lived  on  her  kindness  and  imposed  upon  her 
generosity. 


384  ^-^-^  ^^^  GOOD  MOTHERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

From  the  time  Lincoln  left  his  father's  service,  he  never  returned  to  his 
home  to  stay.  During  his  life  at  home  his  aspirations  were  chilled  and  his 
ambition  curbed  by  the  work  that  was  put  before  him,  and  the  poverty  of  his 
family,  which  grieved  him  deeply. 

Twice  only  during  his  father's  life  did  he  visit  his  home,  but  when  his 
father  died  he  wrote  kindly  to  his  stepbrother,  who  had  informed  him  of  the 
event.  He  was  unable  to  see  his  mother  at  the  time  because  of  illness  in  his 
own  household,  but  when  he  was  elected  President  of  the  United  States  he 
went  to  see  her.     Mr.  Lamon  thus  describes  this  last  reunion : 

"It  was  all  very  pleasant  to  Mr.  Lincoln  to  see  such  multitudes  of  familiar 
faces  smiling  upon  his  wonderful  successes.  But  the  chief  object  of  his  solici- 
tude was  not  here  ;  Mrs.  Lincoln  lived  in  the  southern  part  of  the  county, 
and  he  was  all  impatience  to  see  her.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  he  had  taken  a 
frugal  breakfast  with  Dennis  (Hanks),  he  and  Colonel  Chapman  started  off 
in  a  'two-horse  buggy'  toward  Farmington,  where  his  stepmother  was  living 
with  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Moore.  They  had  much  difficulty  in  crossing  'the 
Kickapoo '  river,  which  was  running  full  of  ice  ;  but  they  finally  made  the  dan- 
gerous passage  and  arrived  at  Farmington  in  safety. 

"The  meeting  between  him  and  the  old  lady  was  of  a  most  affectionate 
and  tender  character.  She  fondled  him  as  her  own  'Abe,' and  he  her  as  his 
own  mother.  It  was  soon  arrang-ed  that  she  should  return  with  him  to  Charles- 
ton,  so  that  they  might  enjoy  by  the  way  the  unrestricted  and  uninterrupted 
intercourse  which  they  both  desired  above  all  things,  but  which  they  were  not 
likely  to  have  where  the  people  could  get  at  him.  .  .  .  The  parting  be- 
tween Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  mother  was  very  touching.  She  embraced  him 
with  deep  emotion,  and  said  she  was  sure  she  would  never  behold  him  again, 
for  she  felt  that  his  enemies  would  assassinate  him.  He  replied:  'No,  no, 
mamma;  they  will  not  do  that.  Trust  in  the  Lord,  and  all  will  be  well;  we 
will  see  each  other  again.'  "  How  like  the  parting  of  Washington  and  his 
mother  after  he  was  elected  President,  and  how  true  the  presentiment  in  both 
cases  that  they  should  meet  no  more  on  earth  ! 

The  fear  expressed  by  his  stepmother  had  been  impressed  upon  her  from 
the  time  of  his  election,  and  it  was  generally  shared  in  by  her  family  and 
neighbors.  She  never  saw  him  again.  In  her  interview  with  Mr.  Herndon 
after  the  assassination,  she  spoke  of  him  with  a  voice  broken  with  emotion. 
"Abe  was  a  poor  boy,''  said  she,  "and  I  can  say  what  scarcely  one  woman — 
a  mother — can  say  in  a  thousand.  Abe  never  gave  me  a  cross  word  or  look, 
and  never  refused,  in  fact  or  appearance,  to  do  anything  I  requested.  I  never 
gave  him  a  cross  word  in  all  my  life.  .  .  .  His  mind  and  mine — what 
little  I  had — seemed  to  run  tofrether,  .  .  .  He  was  here  after  he  was 
elected    President."     (At  this  point  the  aged  speaker  turned  away  to  weep, 


A  NOBLE  TESTIMONY. 


285 


and  then,  wiping  her  eyes  with  her  apron,  went  on  with  the  story.)  "  He 
was  dutiful  to  me  always.  I  think  he  loved  me  truly.  I  had  a  son  John, 
who  was  raised  with  Abe.  Both  were  good  boys ;  but  I  must  say,  both  now 
being  dead,  that  Abe  was  the  best  boy  I  ever  saw  or  expect  to  see."  When 
Mr.  Herndon  rose  to  go  her  eyes  were  filled  with  tears,  and  wringing  his  hands 
as  if  loath  to  part  with  one  who  talked  so  much  of  her  beloved  Abe,  she 
said:   "Good-bye,  my  good  son's  friend,  farewell." 

Kind  to  both  mothers,  and  loving  the  stepmother  dearly  because  he  re- 
ceived from  her  hands  the  daily  comforts  of  life  and  the  companionship  a  nature 
like  his  required,  Lincoln  was  yet  the  likeness  in  spirit  and  purpose  of  his  own 
mother,  and  it  was  she  who  planted  the  seeds  of  greatness  which  her  noble 
successor  watered  and  cultivated  until  "God  gave  the  increase"  for  his  and 
humanity's  reaping. 

For  the  full  details  of  the  life  of  this  ofreat  son  of  these  two  ereat  mothers — 
for  he  himself  declared  that  he  had  two — we  must  refer  the  reader  to  the 
biography  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

With  what  pathos  truly  did  Walt  Whitman  express  the  grief  of  a  stricken 
nation  for  its  fallen  chief  in  the  followino-  beautiful  ode. 

O  Captain  !  my  Captain  !  our  fearful  trip  is  done  ; 
The  ship  has  weather' d  every  rock,  the  prize  we  sought  is  won, 
The  port  is  near,  the  bells  I  hear,  the  people  all  exulting. 
While  follow  eyes  the  steady  keel,  the  vessel  grim  and  daring; 
But  O  heart !  heart !  heart ! 

O  the  bleeding  drops  of  red, 
Where  on  the  deck  my  Captain  lies, 
Fallen,  cold  and  dead. 

O  Captain  !  my  Captain  !  rise  up  and  hear  the  bells ; 
Rise  up, — for  you  the  flag  is  flung, — for  you  the  bugle  trills ; 
For  you  bouquets  and  ribbon'd  wreaths, — for  you  the  shores  a-crowding, 
For  you  they  call,  the  swaying  mass,  their  eager  faces  turning ; 
Here  Captain  !  dear  father  ! 

This  arm  beneath  your  head  ! 

It  is  some  dream  that  on  the  deck 

You've  fallen,  cold  and  dead. 

My  Captain  does  not  answer,  his  lips  are  pale  and  still ; 
My  father  does  not  feel  my  arm,  he  has  no  pulse  nor  will, 
The  ship  is  anchor'd  safe  and  sound,  its  voyage  closed  and  done ; 
From  fearful  trip  the  victor  ship  comes  in  with  object  won  ; 
Exult  O  shores,  and  ring  O  bells  ! 

But  I  with  mournful  tread 
Walk  the  deck  my  Captain  lies, 
Fallen,  cold  and  dead. 


THE   PATHETIC  STORY  OF   THE   MOTHER  OF 
STONEWALL  JACKSON, 


JULIA     NEALE. 

When  Stonewall  Jackson  was 
three  years  old  his  father  died  a 
miserable  gambler,  leaving  a  wife 
and  small  children  homeless  and 
so  utterly  destitute  that  the  charity 
of  the  Masonic  Order,  perhaps, 
saved  them  from  the  wolf  of  star 
vation. 

Let  us  picture  a  heroic  woman 
in  one  poor  room,  with  her  little 
flock  of  fatherless,  helpless,  depend- 
ent children.  Here  she  cooked 
and  made  their  clothes,  and  did 
sewing  for  the  more  fortunate,  and 
still  found  time  to  teach  a  little 
school,  that  the  cruse  of  oil  and 
the  meal  barrel  might  not  entirely 
fail.  Was  it  the  sight  of  this  sad 
and  desolate  room  and  this  toiling 
mother  that  made  little  Thomas 
Jackson  always  a  sad-faced  boy  and 
a  solemn,  serious  man  ?  And  was 
it  the  example  his  mother  set  in 
her  battle  against  poverty  and  the 
heroic  principle  which  he  inherited  from  her  that  made  him  stand,  in  after  years, 
like  a  stone  wall  in  battle  ?  Let  us  believe  it  was  so.  For  Stonewall  Jackson 
Was  y  truly  great  man — enough  like  Abraham  Lincoln  In  nobility  of  principle  to 
have  been  his  brother ;  and  their  early  history,  in  many  respects,  is  remarkably 
similar.  Both  were  the  children  of  improvident  sires  ;  both  were  nursed  in  the 
cradle  of  poverty ;  both  received  their  early  training  in  the  school  of  privation 
and  hardship ;  both  lived  for  honor  and  humanity ;  both  died  for  the  cause  of 
liberty  and  justice,  though  their  judgments  were  opposed  to  each  other,  and 
both  are  enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  their  countrymen  as  the  highest  types  oi 
noble,  unselfish,  magnanimous  manhpod, 
2d6  ' 


THOMAS   [.  ("STONEWALL")  JACKSON. 


THE  FATHER  OF  STONEWALL  JACKSON.  287 

That  the  father  of  Stonewall  Jackson  became  an  irreclaimable  gambler  was 
not  chargeable,  perhaps,  so  much  to  his  natural  character  as  to  the  force  of  his 
environment.  Conditions  of  life  in  the  South  in  those  days  were  far  different 
from  what  they  are  to-day.  Slaves  did  nearly  all  the  manual  labor,  and  gentle- 
men who  owned  them  considered  it  degrading  to  toil.  "An  idle  brain  is  the 
devil's  workshop,"  said  Franklin.  Hence,  it  is  not  surprising  that  immunity 
from  toil  was  enjoyed  ai  the  expense  of  morals  by  men  to  whom  it  o-ave  so 
much  idle  leisure.  Jonathan  Jackson  belonged  to  this  class.  He  was  a  well- 
born Virginian.  He  inherited  a  handsome  estate  and  a  number  of  slaves  from 
his  father.  He  was  a  gentleman  of  education,  and,  it  is  said,  was  a  young  law- 
yer of  rising  promise,  whose  practice  yielded  him  a  good  income,  when  he  led 
Miss  Julia  Neale,  of  Parkersburg,  to  the  altar.  He  is  credited  with  having  had 
pleasing  manners  and  a  generous  disposition. 

He  was  just  the  type  of  man  from  which  the  race-track,  the  gaming-table 
and  the  saloon  drew  their  respectable  recruits.  His  social  qualities  made  him 
a  shining  mark  to  the  flatterer's  enticing  wiles,  and  he  fell  an  easy  victim.  He 
indorsed  for  friends  ;  he  "  played  high  and  lost ;  "  he  quaffed  the  deceptive  and 
deadly  cup  to  nerve  him  to  more  desperate  efforts,  played  higher,  higher, 
higher,  and  paid  "debts  of  honor"  {disJwnor),  until  his  professional  income, 
patrimony,  home,  all  were  swallowed  up,  and  then — shall  we  say  it? — like  an 
unnerved  coward,  unable  to  face  and  repair  the  ruin  he  had  wrought,  tumbled 
into  his  grave,  leaving  his  brave  and  noble  wife,  reared  in  delicate  luxury  and 
unused  to  toil,  to  fight  the  battle  of  both  father  and  mother,  and  that,  too, 
under  the  proud  world's  scorning  finger,  which  pointed  to  her  as  a  partner 
rather  than  as  a  victim  of  his  discrrace.  It  is  said  that  her  husband's  relatives 
turned  against  her,  or  showed  but  little  interest  in  her  after  his  death. 

Was  it  due  to  her  deep  Christian  faith  and  fortitude  that  she  was  able  to 
bear,  during  those  dark  hours  in  the  lonely  little  room,  the  humiliating  condition 
to  which  he  had  brought  her?  Or  was  it  her  mother-love,  twining  itself,  like 
silken  tendrils,  around  her  helpless  children,  binding  them  to  her  bleeding  heart 
as  the  only  panacea  to  her  woe  ?  It  was  both.  The  twin  power  of  mother-love 
and  Christian  love  sustained  her.  Julia  Neale  was  not  only  a  true  mother,  but 
she  was  a  devout  worshipper,  whose  faith  reached  down  into  the  very  heart  of 
the  Gospel  and  drew  its  consolation  from  sources  deeper  than  Jacob's  Well. 
She  had  drunk  of  that  fountain  which  alone  quenches  the  thirst  of  the  human 
soul,  and  which  had  proved,  indeed,  a  well  of  living  water  forever  springing  up 
within  her  heart. 

This  is  why  she  hesitated  not  to  humiliate  herself  when  she  read  the  prom- 
ise, "  He  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted."  This  is  why  she  followed 
not  her  dissolute,  improvident  husband  into  the  grave.  This  brave  devotion  to 
duty  was  the  character,  inherited   and  inculcated,  which  marked  the   life  of 


288     PATHETIC  STORY  OF  THE  MOTHER  OF  STONEWALL  JACKSON. 

Thomas  J.  Jackson.  This  was  the  stone  wall  of  his  greatness,  and  it  is  Hght 
that  the  world  should  know — as  he,  like  Washington,  always  asserted — it  was 
his  mother's  influence  that  made  him  what  he  was. 

History  tells  us  but  little  concerning  the  details  of  this  mother  of  a  great 
man.  She  was  of  excellent  family,  and  had  a  happy  home  in  Parkersburg  with 
her  parents.  She  is  also  described  as  having  been  very  handsome,  graceful 
and  unusually  cultivated  and  refined.  Such  was  Julia  Neale  when  Jonathan 
Jackson  married  her ;  grief  and  hardship  and  disappointment  soon  blighted  her 
vivacious  beauty. 

As  we  have  said  before,  little  Thomas  (Stonewall)  was  only  three  years  of 
age  when  his  father  died.  Previous  to  Jonathan  Jackson's  death  he  had  lost  a 
daughter,  and  his  widow  and  three  children  faced  life  without  a  dollar.  There 
was  no  money,  no  home,  no  brightness,  no  future  for  this  family,  that  a  few 
years  before  was  in  comfort  and  respectability.  They  had  been  robbed  of 
everything  to  pay  their  father's  gambling  debts,  without  his  wife's  knowledge  or 
consent.  The  lands  which  he  thus  gambled  away  made  their  subsequent  owners 
rich.  Had  the  law  recognized  Mrs.  Jackson  as  an  equal  in  the  marriage  con- 
tract, it  would  not  have  been  possible  for  her  husband  to  have  left  her  destitute 
and  her  children  beggars,  forcing  her  to  shelter  herself  through  the  kindness  of 
Masonic  charity,  and  to  keep  herself  and  her  children  from  starvation  by  menial 
service  to  which  her  physical  strength  was  unequal. 

But  Jonathan  Jackson  did  not  live,  and  perhaps  it  was  better  for  Stonewall 
Jackson's  fame  that  his  young  mother  and  her  little  ones  were  left  upon  the  cold 
charity  of  the  world  and  the  mercy  of  God. 

Many  have  blamed  Mrs.  Jackson  for  marrying  a  second  time  and  separat- 
ing her  children,  and  perhaps  it  was  wrong.  But  who  knows  the  dreams  that 
were  in  the  mother's  mind  of  reunitine  them?  What  could  she  do  when  the 
struggle  became  unbearable  and  the  wolf  could  no  longer  be  kept  from  the  door 
by  her  feeble  failing  strength  ? 

Her  husband's  relatives  appear  to  have  taken  a  negative  if  any  interest  in  her, 
yet  they  did  seem  to  care  for  the  children  and  were  willing  to  take  them.  She 
suffered  torture  at  the  thought  of  parting  from  them,  but  she  saw  it  must  come 
some  time.  Still  she  struggled  and  sorrowed  on,  and  kept  them  together  for  three 
years  after  her  husband's  death.  There  is  no  earthly  anguish  to  be  compared  to 
that  inflicted  by  poverty  under  the  circumstances  of  this  mother's  life,  and  it  can 
only  be  felt  by  a  mother ;  it  is  unintelligible  and  inexplicable  to  all  others.  All 
that  kept  her  up  was  the  fervent  faith  she  had  in  God. 

A  suitor  in  the  person  of  a  Mr.  Woodson,  a  man  greatly  her  senior  in 
years  and  almost  as  poor  as  herself,  appeared,  and  to  the  surprise  of  her  friends 
won  her  consent  to  a  marriage.  Her  husband's  family  interfered  and  tried  to 
prevent  what  they  probably  saw  was  a  mistake,  but  she  married.     Mr.  Wood- 


THE  SAD  PARTING  BETWEEN  SON  AND  MOTHER. 


289 


son  lived  in  another  county,  and  as  he  was  unable  to  provide  for  her  little  sons 
and  daughter  she  was  perforce  compelled  to  let  their  father's  kindred  take  them. 
Little  Thomas  was  the  youngest  child,  and  he  was  six  years  old  at  that  time. 
The  parting  with  him,  her  idol,  was  the  hardest  of  trials.  He  was  a  pretty, 
blue-eyed  boy,  who  claimed  her  attention  and  responded  to  her  tender  affection 
and  endearments.  Even  this  little  child  had  to  be  given  up,  and  the  description 
of  the  parting  is  most  touching.  So  bitter  was  the  pain  to  his  mother  that  the 
event  was  impressed  upon  the  little  boy's  memory  indelibly.  His  own  distress" 
was  pitiful.     A  faithful  old  slave,  who  had   belonged   to  his  father,  was  sent  to 


HOUSE  IN  WHICH  STONEWALL -JACKSON  DIED,  CIIANCl  IT  "R-Vll  r  i  ,   \  \. 


take  him  from  his  mother  to  his  uncle's  house,  his  new  home.  The  child  Avas  to 
ride  behind  him  on  horseback,  and  early  in  the  morning  "Uncle  Robinson" 
came  for  him.  The  poor  mother  made  all  the  excuses  she  could  for  delay.  She 
put  up  with  her  own  hands  a  lunch  for  her  little  boy  to  eat  on  the  way,  and  the 
colored  man  was  entreated  to  be  thoughtful  of  him.  The  mother,  with  white 
face  and  quivering  lips,  kissed  her  boy  good-bye,  and  he  was  lifted  up  and 
placed  on  the  horse.  The  kind-hearted  slave  heard  a  last  injunction  and  started, 
but  before  he  had  gone  far  he  was  called  back  by  the  agonized  mother,  who  took 
her  boy  again  in  her  arms  and  gave  way  to  such  an  outburst  of  weeping  that 


290    PATHETIC  STORY  OF  THE  MOTHER  OF  STONEWALL  JACKSON. 

the  scene  was  never  obliterated  from  the  child's  memory.  He  heard  the  sobs 
of  his  broken-hearted  mother  through  all  his  life,  and  they  saddened  every 
year  of  it. 

One  year  later  the  unhappy  mother  gave  birth  to  a  son  and — died.  Her 
little  boys  and  her  only  daughter  were  sent  for  when  it  was  seen  that  she  was 
dying,  and  the  sight  of  them  gave  her  comfort  in  her  last  hours.  Little  Thomas 
sat  upon  her  bed  beside  her,  prattling  in  his  delight,  and  she  forgot  the  near- 
ness of  death  in  the  presence  of  her  long-absent  boy.  Her  rapidly-failing 
strength  was  a  cruel  admonition  that  she  must  soon  die,  and  her  children  were 
gathered  about  her  bed  to  take  their  last  fond  farewells.  The  end  came  quickly, 
and  when  all  was  over  they  were  sent  back  to  their  adopted  homes,  never  more 
to  be  united  again.  Thomas,  though  the  youngest,  was  so  deeply  affected  that 
he  said,  years  afterwards,  "The  wholesome  impression  of  her  dying  instructions 
and  prayers  and  of  her  triumph  over  the  grave  have  never  been  erased  from  my 
heart.'' 

Surely  the  fate  of  woman  was  never  sadder  or  more  to  be  regretted  than 
that  of  the  mother  of  Stonewall  Jackson.  But  her  life  was  not  a  failure.  In 
giving  the  world  the  great  Christian  soldier,  Stonewall  Jackson,  she  has  left  a 
legacy  for  the  human  race  which  justifies  the  perpetuation  of  her  memory. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  details  in  the  heroic  and  exemplary  career 
of  this  great  and  noble  son  ;  but  these  we  must  leave  the  reader  to  pursue  in  a 
separate  biography.  His  was  a  life  full  of  changing  vicissitudes,  which  touched 
the  chords  of  human  sympathy  with  a  mellow  music.  To  the  pathetic  strains 
the  hero  was  ever  marching,  grand,  sad-faced,  noble,  and  brave.  Hardships, 
failures,  and  trials  in  early  life  proved  the  true  gold  of  his  character.  Successes, 
triumphs,  honors,  and  acknowledged  genius  are  the  closing  trophies  of  his  hero- 
ism, and  through  it  all  shine  conspicuously  the  transcendent  beauty  of  his  deep 
piety  and  exalted  Christian  character. 

Stonewall  Jackson  was  killed  by  his  own  soldiers,  who  accidentally  mistook 
him  for  the  enemy.  He  died  In  a  farm-house  near  the  scene  of  the  tragedy. 
His  dying  experiences  were  not  widely  different  from  those  of  his  mother, 
whose  perfect  faith  and  serenity  in  the  presence  of  the  last  enemy  called  forth 
from  her  husband  the  remark,  "  No  Christian  on  earth,  no  matter  what  evidence 
he  might  have  had  of  a  happy  hereafter,  could  have  died  with  more  fortitude." 
)ust  before  the  death  of  Stonewall  Jackson  he  said :  "  I  am  not  depressed,  not 
tmhappy.  You  never  saw  me  more  perfectly  contented  than  I  am  to-day,  for  I 
am  sure  that  my  Heavenly  Father  designed  this  affliction  for  my  good."  Thus 
did  Stonewall  Jackson  pass  from  his  great  duties,  leaving  millions  of  mourners 
to  regret  his  death.  Aye,  a  nation  which,  though  he  was  its  honest  foe,  will  never 
forget  the  Christian  soldier  who  passed  over  the  River  of  Time  to  rest  under  the 
shade  of  trees  in  the  eternal  home, 


■■HI    iiii,i  I  iik.i  I ,  "nwi  I L  wp  ^i|      jiyiiji  Ljiint'l      ''t'T  ' 

'fci  ',,''„'ii"i',.,      ,.  ,.'i,*,'"i     ,  ■"'.  .    i;  j!,.*.    -  II  If       '' 
ml        i'   ',1^       '     '^'J,'     ir"-".-  "-iiV*:*^       '"'4.    I 


HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE. 


HARRIET   BEECHER  STOWE, 

AUTHOR    OK    THK    IVIOSX    POPUI^AR    AIVlERICAN     NOVEL 

EW  names  are  more  indelibly  written  upon  our  country's 

history  than  that  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.     "  No  book," 

'     says  George  William  Curtis,  "  was  ever  more  a  historical 

event   than    '  Uncle   Tom's    Cabin.'  ...  It   is    the   great 

happiness  of  Mrs.  Stowe  not  only  to  have  written  many 

delightful  books,  but  to  have  written  one  book  which  will 

always  be   famous   not  only  as  the   most  vivid   picture  of 

an  extinct  evil  system,  but  as  one  of  the  most  powerful 

influences   in   overthrowing  it.  .  .  .  If  all  whom  she   has 

charmed  and  quickened  should  unite  to  sing  her  praises,  the 

birds  of  summer  would  be  outdone." 

Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  was  the  sixth  child  of  Reverend 
Lyman  Beecher, — the  great  head  of  that  great  family  which  has 
left  so  deep  an  impress  upon  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  American  people.  She 
was  born  in  Litchfield,  Connecticut,  in  June,  1811, — just  two  years  before  her 
next  younger  brother,  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  Her  father  was  pastor  of  the 
Congregational  Church  in  Litchfield,  and  her  girlhood  was  passed  there  and  at 
Hartford,  where  she  attended  the  excellent  seminary  kept  by  her  elder  sister. 
Catharine  E.  Beecher.  In  1832  her  father  accepted  a  call  to  the  presidency  of 
Lane  Theological  Seminary,  at  Cincinnati,  and  moved  thither  with  his  family. 
Catharine  Beecher  went  also,  and  established  there  a  new  school,  under  the 
name  of  the  Western  Female  Institute,  in  which  Harriet  assisted. 

In  1833  Mrs.  Stowe  first  had  the  subject  of  slavery  brought  to  her  personal 
notice  by  taking  a  trip  across  the  river  from  Cincinnati  into  Kentucky  in  company 
with  Miss  Dutton,  one  of  the  associate  teachers  in  the  Western  Institute.  They 
visited  the  estate  that  afterward  figured  as  that  of  Mr.  Shelby,  in  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,"  and  here  the  young  authoress  first  came  into  personal  contact  with  the 
slaves  of  the  South.  In  speaking,  many  years  afterward,  of  this  visit.  Miss 
Dutton  said :  "  Harriet  did  not  seem  to  notice  anything  in  particular  that  hap. 
pened,  but  sat  much  of  the  time  as  though  abstracted  in  thought.  When  the 
negroes  did  funny  things,   and  cut  up  capers,   she  did  not  seem  to  pay  the 

293 


294 


HARRIET  BEECH ER  STOWE. 


slightest  attention  to  them.  Afterward,  however,  in  reading  '  Uncle  Tom,'  I 
recognized  scene  after  scene  of  that  visit  portrayed  with  the  most  minute 
fidelity,  and  knew  at  once  where  the  material  for  that  portion  of  the  story  had 
been  gathered." 

Harriet  Beecher's  life  in  Cincinnati  was  such  as  to  bring  out  all  that  was 
best  and  noblest  in  her  character.  Where  her  father's  family  was,  she  could  not 
lack  good  society,  for  all  that  was  best,  intellectually  and  socially,  always  gath- 


NEGRO  VILLAGE  IN  GEORGIA. 


ered  naturally  around  that  centre.  Among  the  professors  in  Lane  Seminary 
was  Calvin  E.  Stowe,  whose  wife,  a  dear  friend  of  Miss  Beecher,  died  soon 
after  Dr.  Beecher's  removal  to  Cincinnati.  In  1836  Professor  Stowe  and  Har- 
riet Beecher  were  married.  They  were  admirably  suited  to  each  other.  Pro- 
fessor Stowe  was  a  typical  man  of  letters, — a  learned,  amiable,  unpractical 
philosopher,  whose  philosophy  was  like  that  described  by  Shakespeare  as  "  an 
excellent  horse  in  the  stable,  but  an  arrant  jade  on  a  journey."     Her  practical 


SECURING  A  SLAVE'S  FREEDOM.  ^gs 

ability  and  cheerful,  inspiring  courage  were  the  unfailing  support  of  her  hus- 
band. Soon  after  their  marriage  he  sailed  for  Europe  to  purchase  books  for 
Lane  Seminary,  and  in  a  characteristic  letter  given  to  him  at  parting,  not  to  be 
opened  until  he  was  at  sea,  she  charges  him,  "  Set  your  face  like  a  flint  against 
the  '  cultivation  of  indigo,'  as  Elizabeth  calls  it,  in  any  way  or  shape. 
Seriously,  dear  one,  you  must  give  more  way  to  hope  than  to  memory.  You 
are  going  to  a  new  scene  now,  and  one  that  I  hope  will  be  full  of  enjoyment  to 
you.     I  want  you  to  take  the  good  of  it," 

In  1839  Mrs.  Stowe  received  into  her  family  as  a  servant  a  colored  girl  from 
Kentucky.  By  the  laws  of  Ohio  she  was  free,  having  been  brought  into  the 
State  and  left  there  by  her  mistress.  In  spite  of  this.  Professor  Stowe  received 
word,  after  she  had  lived  with  them  some  months,  that  the  o-irl's  master  was  in 
the  city  looking  for  her,  and  that  if  she  were  not  careful  she  would  be  seized 
and  taken  back  into  slavery.  Finding  that  this  could  be  accomplished  by  bold- 
ness, perjury,  and  the  connivance  of  some  unscrupulous  justice  of  the  peace. 
Professor  Stowe  determined  to  remove  the  girl  to  some  place  of  security  where 
she  might  remain  until  the  search  for  her  should  be  given  up.  Accordingly,  he 
and  his  brother-in-law,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  both  armed,  drove  the  fugitive,  in 
a  covered  wagon,  at  night,  by  unfrequented  roads,  twelve  miles  back  into  the 
country,  and  left  her  in  safety  with  the  family  of  old  John  Van  Zandt,  the  fugi- 
tive's friend. 

It  is  from  this  incident  of  real  life  and  personal  experience  that  Mrs.  Stowe 
conceived  the  thrilling  episode  of  Eliza's  escape  from  Tom  Loker  and  Marks,  in 
"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin." 

In  the  spring  of  1832  Mrs.  Stowe  visited  Hartford,  taking  her  six-year-old 
daughter  Hatty  with  her.  In  writing  from  there  to  her  husband  she  confides 
some  of  her  literary  plans  and  aspirations  to  him,  and  he  answers  : — 

"  My  dear,  you  must  be  a  literary  woman.  It  is  so  written  in  the  book  of 
fate.  Make  all  your  calculations  accordingly.  Get  up  a  good  stock  of  health, 
and  brush  up  your  mind.  Drop  the  E  out  of  your  name.  It  only  encumbers  it 
and  interferes  with  the  flow  and  euphony.  Write  yourself  fully  and  always 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  which  is  a  name  euphonious,  flowing,  and  full  of  mean- 
ing. Then,  my  word  for  it,  your  husband  will  lift  up  his  head  in  the  gates,  and 
your  children  will  rise  up  and  call  you  blessed." 

The  letter  closes  with  a  characteristic  appeal : — 

"And  now,  my  dear  wife,  I  want  you  to  come  home  as  quick  as  you  can.  The  fact  is  I  can- 
not live  without  you,  and  if  we  were  not  so  prodigious  poor  I  would  come  for  you  at  once.  There  is 
no  woman  like  you  in  this  wide  world.  Who  else  has  so  much  talent,  with  so  little  self-conceit; 
so  much  reputation,  with  so  little  affectation  ;  so  much  literature  with  so  little  nonsense,  so  much 
enterprise  with  so  little  extravagance,  so  much  tongue  with  so  little  scold,  so  much  sweetness  with  so 
little  softness,  so  much  of  so  many  things  and  so  little  of  so  many  other  things?  " 
18s  &D 


2^6  HARRIET  BEECH ER  STOWE. 

That  Professor  Stowe's  devoted  admiration  for  his  wife  was  reciprocated, 
and  that  a  most  perfect  sympathy  of  feehng  existed  between  the  husband  and 
wife,  is  shown  by  a  hne  in  one  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  letters  from  Hartford,  in  which 
she  says  :  "  I  was  telhng  Belle  yesterday  that  I  did  not  know  till  I  came  away 
how  much  I  was  dependent  upon  you  for  information.  There  are  a  thousand 
favorite  subjects  on  which  I  could  talk  with  you  better  than  with  any  one  else. 
If  you  were  not  already  my  dearly  loved  husband  I  should  certainly  fall  in  love 
with  you." 

The  years  from  1845  to  1850  were  a  time  of  severe  trial  to  Mrs.  Stowe. 
She  and  her  husband  both  suffered  from  ill  health,  and  the  family  was  separated. 
Professor  Stowe  was  struggling  with  poverty,  and  endeavoring  at  the  same  time 
to  lift  the  Theological  Seminary  out  of  financial  difficulties.  In  1849,  while  Pro 
fessor  Stowe  was  ill  at  a  water-cure  establishment  in  Vermont,  their  youngest 
child  died  of  cholera,  which  was  then  raging  in  Cincinnati.  In  1850  it  was 
decided  to  remove  to  Brunswick,  Maine,  the  seat  of  Bowdoin  College,  where 
Professor  Stowe  was  offered  a  position  ;  and  in  April  Mrs.  Stowe,  with  three 
of  her  five  children,  started  on  the  long  and  toilsome  journey,  leaving  her  hus- 
band with  the  other  two  to  follow  a  few  months  later.  Their  household  eoods 
were  shipped  at  the  same  time,  and  Mrs.  Stowe,  under  the  pressure  of  poverty 
and  in  delicate  health,  undertook  all  the  labor  and  responsibihty  of  establishing 
their  new  home.  Early  in  the  summer  her  husband  joined  her,  and  in  July 
her  son  Charles  was  born.     In  a  letter  written  about  this  time  she  says  : — 

"  Sarah,  when  I  look  back,  I  wonder  at  myself,  not  that  I  forget  any  one  thing  that  I  should 
remember,  but  that  I  have  remembered  anything.  From  the  time  that  I  left  Cincinnati  with  my 
children  to  come  forth  to  a  country  that  I  knew  not  of,  almost  to  the  present  time,  it  seemed  as  if 
I  could  scarcely  breathe,  I  was  so  pressed  with  care.  My  head  dizzy-with  the  whirl  of  railroads  and 
steamboats ;  then  ten  days'  sojourn  in  Boston,  and  a  constant  toil  and  hurry  in  buying  my  furniture 
and  equipments ;  then  landing  in  Brunswick  in  the  midst  of  a  drizzly,  inexorable  northeast  storm, 
and  beginning  the  work  of  getting  in  order  a  deserted,  dreary,  damp  old  house.   .   .   . 

"  Then  comes  a  letter  from  my  husband  saying  he  is  sick  abed,  and  all  but  dead  ;  don't  ever 
expect  to  see  his  family  again  ;  wants  to  know  how  I  shall  manage  in  case  I  am  left  a  widow  ;  knows 
we  shall  get  in  debt  and  never  get  out ;  wonders  at  my  courage,  thinks  I  am  very  sanguine,  wants 
me  to  be  prudent,  as  there  won't  be  much  to  live  on  in  case  of  his  death,  etc..  etc.,  etc.  I  read 
the  letter  and  poke  it  into  the  stove,  and  proceed.".   .  . 

Few  women  under  such  circumstances  would  think  of  undertaking  literary 
work ;  yet  it  was  in  the  midst  of  these  events  that  the  great  work  of  Mrs. 
Stowe's  life  began  to  take  definite  shape  in  her  mind. 

The  year  1850  is  memorable  in  the  history  of  the  conflict  with  slavery.  It 
was  the  year  of  Clay's  compromise  measures,  as  they  were  called,  which  sought 
to  satisfy  the  North  by  the  admission  of  California  as  a  free  State,  and  to  pro- 
pitiate the  South  by  the  notorious  "  Fugitive  Slave  Law."  The  slave  power 
was  at  its  height,  and  seemed  to  hold  all  things  under  its  feet ;  yet  in  truth  it 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  ''UNCLE  TOM'S  CABINS  ^ 

had  entered  upon  the   last   stage  of   its   existence,   and   the   forces  were  fast 
gathering-  for  its  final  overthrow. 

EFFECTS    OF    THE    FUGITIVE    SLAVE    LAW. 

After  the  passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  letter  after  letter  was  received 
by  Mrs.  Stowe,  in  Brunswick,  from  Mrs.  Edward  Beecher  and  other  friends, 
describing  the  heart-rending  scenes  which  were  the  inevitable  results  of  the 
enforcement  of  this  terrible  law.  Cities  were  more  available  for  capturino- 
escaped  slaves  than  the  country,  and  Boston,  which  claimed  the  "cradle  of 
liberty,"  Faneuil  Hall,  opened  her  doors  to  the  slave-hunters.  The  sorrow  and 
anguish  caused  thereby  no  pen  could  describe.  Families  of  colored  people  were 
broken  up.  Some  hid  in  garrets  and  cellars.  Some  fled  to  the  wharves  and 
embarked  in  ships  and  sailed  for  Europe.  Others  went  to  Canada.  One  poor 
fellow,  who  was  doing  good  business  as  a  crockery  merchant,  and  supporting 
his  family  well,  when  he  got  notice  that  his  master,  whom  he  had  left  many 
years  before,  was  after  him,  set  out  for  Canada  in  midwinter  on  foot,  as  he  did 
not  dare  to  take  a  public  conveyance.  He  froze  both  feet  on  the  journey,  and 
they  had  to  be  amputated.  Mrs.  Edward  Beecher,  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Stowe' s 
son,  writing  of  this  period,  says: — 

"  I  had  been  nourishing  an  anti-slavery  spirit  since  Lovejoy  was  murdered  for  publishing  in 
his  paper  articles  against  slavery  and  intemperance,  when  our  home  was  in  Illinois.  These  terrible 
things  which  were  going  on  in  Boston  were  well  calculated  to  rouse  up  this  spirit.  What  can  I  do? 
I  thought.  Not  much  myself,  but  1  know  one  who  can.  So  I  wrote  several  letters  to  your  mother, 
telling  her  of  various  heart-rending  events  caused  by  the  enforcement  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 
I  remember  distinctly  saying  in  one  of  them,  *  Now,  Hattie,  if  I  could  use  a  pen  as  you  can,  I 
would  write  something  that  would  make  this  whole  nation  feel  what  an  accursed  thing  slavery  is.' 

"  When  we  lived  in  Boston  your  mother  often  visited  us.  .  .  .  Several  numbers  of  *  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  '  were  written  in  your  Uncle  Edward's  study  at  these  times  and  read  to  us  from 
manuscripts." 

A  member  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  family  well  remembers  the  scene  in  the  little 
parlor  in  Brunswick  when  the  letter  alluded  to  was  received.  Mrs.  Stowe  her- 
self read  it  aloud  to  the  assembled  family,  and  when  she  came  to  the  passage, 
"  I  would  write  somethine  that  would  make  this  whole  nation  feel  what  an 
accursed  thing  slavery  is,"  Mrs.  Stowe  rose  from  her  chair,  crushing  the  letter 
in  her  hand,  and  with  an  expression  on  her  face  that  stamped  itself  on  the  mind 
of  her  child,  said  :   "  I  will  write  something.     I  will,  if  I  live." 

This  was  the  origin  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  Professor  Cairnes  and 
others  said  truly,  "  The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  has  been  to  the  slave  power  a 
questionable  gain.     Among  its  first  fruits  was  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.'  " 

It  was  in  the  month  of  February  after  these  words  were  written  that  Mrs. 
Stowe  was  seated  at  the  communion  service  in  the  college  church  at  Brunswick. 
Suddenly,  like  the  unrolling  of  a  picture,  the  scene  of  the  death  of  Uncle  Tom 


298 


HARRIET  BEECH ER  STOWE. 


passed  before  her  mind.  So  strongly  was  she  affected  that  it  was  with  difficulty 
she  could  keep  from  weeping  aloud.  Immediately  on  returning  home  she  took 
pen  and  paper  and  wrote  out  the  vision  which  had  been  as  it  were  blown  into 
her  mind  "  as  by  the  rushing  of  a  mighty  wind."  Gathering  her  litde  family 
about  her,  she  read  what  she  had  written.  Her  two  little  ones  of  ten  and  twelve 
years  of  age  broke  into  convulsions  of  weeping,  one  of  them  saying  through  his 
sobs,  "Oh,  mamma!  slavery  is  the  most  cruel  thing  in  the  world."  Thus 
"Uncle  Tom"  was  ushered  into  the  world.  It  was  a  cry,  an  immediate,  invol- 
untary expression  of  deep,  impas- 
sioned feeling. 

Twenty-five  years  afterward 
Mrs.  Stowe  wrote,  in  a  letter  to 
one  of  her  children,  of  this  period 
of  her  life :  "I  well  remember  the 
winter  you  were  a  baby,  and  I  was 
writing  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.'  My 
heart  was  bursting  with  the  anguish 
excited  by  the  cruelty  and  injustice 
our  nation  was  showing  to  the  slave, 
and  praying  God  to  let  me  do  a 
little,  and  to  cause  my  cry  for  them 
to  be  heard.  I  remember  many  a 
night  weeping  over  you  as  you  lay 
sleeping  beside  me,  and  thought 
of  the  slave  mothers  whose  babes 
were  torn  from  them." 

The  story  was  begun  as  a 
serial  in  the  National  Era,  June  5, 
1 85 1,  and  was  announced  to  run  for 
about  three  months,  but  it  was  not 
completed  in  that  paper  until  April 
I,  1852.  It  had  been  contemplated 
as  a  mere  magazine  tale  of  perhaps  a  dozen  chapters,  but  once  begun  it  could 
no  more  be  controlled  than  the  waters  of  the  swollen  Mississippi,  bursting 
through  a  crevasse  in  its  levees.  The  intense  interest  excited  bv  the  story,  the 
demands  made  upon  the  author  for  more  facts,  the  unmeasured  words  of 
encouragement  to  keep  on  in  her  good  work  that  poured  in  from  all  sides,  and, 
above  all,  the  ever-growing  conviction  that  she  had  been  intrusted  with  a  great 
and  holy  mission,  compelled  her  to  keep  on  until  the  humble  tale  had  assumed 
the  proportions  of  a  large  volume.  Mrs.  Stowe  repeatedly  said,  'T  could  not 
control  the  story,  it  wrote  itself;"  and,  'T  the  author  of  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin*? 


JOHN    BROWN,  WHO   WAS   HANGED  IN  iSj^  FOR  AN  ATTEMPT 
TO   LIBERATE   THE   SLAVES. 


PRAISE  AND  ABUSE.  299 

No,  indeed.     The  Lord  himself  wrote  it,  and  I  was  but  the  humblest  of  instru- 
ments in  his  hand.     To  him  alone  should  be  given  all  the  praise," 

For  the  story  as  a  serial  the  author  received  $300.  In  the  meantime,  how- 
ever, it  had  attracted  the  attention  of  Mr.  John  P.  Jewctt,  a  Boston  publisher, 
who  promptly  made  overtures  for  its  publication  in  book  form.  He  offered  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Stowe  a  half  share  in  the  profits,  provided  they  would  share  with  him 
the  expense  of  publication.  This  was  refused  by  the  Professor,  who  said  he 
was  altogether  too  poor  to  assume  any  such  risk  ;  and  the  agreement  finally 
made  was  that  the  author  should  receive  a  ten  per  cent,  royalty  upon  all  sales. 

SUCCESS   OF    "UNCLE    TOM's    CABIN." 

In  the  meantime  the  fears  of  the  author  as  to  whether  or  not  her  book 
would  be  read  were  quickly  dispelled.  Three  thousand  copies  were  sold  the 
very  first  day,  a  second  edition  was  issued  the  following  week,  a  third  a  few 
days  later ;  and  within  a  year  one  hundred  and  twenty  editions,  or  over  three 
hundred  thousand  copies,  of  the  book  had  been  issued  and  sold  in  this  country 
Almost  in  a  day  the  poor  professor's  wife  had  become  the  most  talked-of  woman 
in  the  world ;  her  influence  for  good  was  spreading  to  its  remotest  corners,  and 
henceforth  she  was  to  be  a  public  character,  whose  every  movement  would  be 
watched  with  interest,  and  whose  every  word  would  be  quoted.  The  long, 
weary  struggle  with  poverty  was  to  be  hers  no  longer  ;  for,  in  seeking  to  aid 
the  oppressed,  she  had  also  so  aided  herself  that  within  four  months  from  the 
time  her  book  was  published  it  had  yielded  her  $10,000  in  royalties. 

The  poet  Whittier  wrote  at  this  time  to  William  Lloyd  Garrison  : — 

"  What  a  glorious  work  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  has  wrought.  Thanks  for  the  P'ugitive  Slave 
Law  !  Better  would  it  be  for  slavery  if  that  law  had  never  been  enacted  ;  for  it  gave  occasion  for 
'Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.'  " 

Garrison  wrote  to  Mrs.  Stowe  : — 

"  I  estimate  the  value  of  anti-slavery  writing  by  the  abuse  it  brings.  Now  all  the  defenders 
of  slavery  have  let  me  alone  and  are  abusing  you." 

It  is  true  that  with  congratulatory  and  commendatory  letters  came  hosts  of 
others,  threatening  and  insulting,  from  the  Haleys  and  the  Legrees  of  the 
country.  Of  them  Mrs.  Stowe  said  :  "  They  are  so  curiously  compounded  of 
blasphemy,  cruelty,  and  obscenity  that  their  like  could  only  be  expressed  by 
John  Bunyan's  account  of  the  speech  of  Apollyon  :   '  He  spake  as  a  dragon.'  " 

The  feeline  toward  the  book  in  the  South  is  well  described  in  a  letter 
written  by  Mrs.  Stowe  to  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  : — 

"  There  is  nothing  that  Southern  political  leaders  and  capitalists  so  dread  as  anti-slavery  feel- 
ing among  themselves.  All  the  force  of  lynch  law  is  employed  to  smother  discussion  and  blind 
conscience  on  this  question.  The  question  is  not  allowed  to  be  discussed,  and  he  who  sells  a  book 
ox  publishes  a  tract  makes  himself  liable  to  fine  and  imprisonment. 


300 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE. 


*'  My  book  is,  therefore,  as  much  under  an  interdict  in  some  parts  of  the  South  as  the  Bible  is 
in  Italy.  It  is  not  allowed  in  the  bookstores,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  people  hear  of  it  and  me 
only  through  grossly  caricatured  representations  in  the  papers,  with  garbled  extracts  from  the  book. 

"  A  cousin  residing  in  Georgia  this  winter  says  that  the  prejudice  against  my  name  is  so  strong 
that  she  dares  not  have  it  appear  on  the  outside  of  her  letters,  and  that  very  amiable  and  excellent 
people  have  asked  her  if  such  as  I  could  be  received  into  reputable  society  at  the  North," 

The  popularity  of  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  abroad  was  as  remarkable  as  its 
success  at  home.  A  statement  made  by  Clarke  &  Company,  who  published  the 
first  English  edition,  is  as  follows  :- 

"  An  early  copy  was  sent  from  America  in  April  to  Mr.  Bogue,  the  publisher,  and  was  offered 
by  him  to  Mr.  Gilpin,  late  of  Bishopsgate  street.     Being  declined  by  Mr.  Gilpin,  Mr.  Bogue  offered 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   COTTON    MILL   OF   MRS.    STOWE'S   TIME. 


it  to  Mr.  Henry  Vizetelly,  and  by  the  latter  gentleman  it  was  eventually  purchased  for  us.  Before 
printing  it,  however,  as  there  was  one  night  allowed  for  decision,  one  volume  was  taken  home  to  be 
read  by  Mr.  Vizetelly,  and  the  other  by  Mr.  Salisbury,  the  printer,  of  Bouverie  street.  The  report  of 
the  latter  gentleman  the  following  morning,  to  quote  his  own  words,  was:  '  I  sat  up  till  four  in  the 
morning  reading  the  book,  and  the  interest  I  felt  in  it  was  expressed  one  moment  by  laughter  and 
another  by  tears.  Thinking  it  might  be  weakness  and  not  the  power  of  the  author  that  affected  me, 
I  resolved  to  try  the  effect  on  my  wife  (a  rather  strong-minded  woman).  I  accordingly  woke  her  and 
read  a  few  chapters  to  her.  Finding  that  her  interest  in  the  story  kept  her  awake,  and  that  she,  too, 
laughed  and  cried,  I  settled  in  my  mind  that  it  was  a  book  that  ought  to,  and  might  with  safety,  be 
printed.' 

**  Mr.  Vizetelly's  opinion  coincided  with  that  of  Mr.  Salisbury,  and  to  the  latter  gentleman 


HER  NUMEROUS  BOOKS 

301 

it  was  confided,  to  be  brought  out  immediately.  The  week  following  the  book  was  produced,  and 
one  edition  of  7000  copies  worked  off.  It  made  no  stir  until  the  middle  of  June,  although  we 
advertised  it  very  extensively.  From  June  it  began  to  make  its  way,  and  it  sold  at  the  rate  of  1000 
per  week  during  July.  In  August  the  demand  became  very  great,  and  went  on  increasing  to  the 
20th,  by  which  time  it  was  perfe(!tly  overwhelming.  We  have  now  about  four  hundred  people 
employed  in  getting  out  the  book,  and  seventeen  printing  machines,  besides  hand  presses.  Already 
about  150,000  copies  of  the  book  are  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  and  still  the  returns  of  the  sales 
show  no  decline." 

In  1852  Professor  Stowe  received  a  call  to  the  professorship  of  Sacred 
Literature  in  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  and  the  family  soon  removed  to 
their  Massachusetts  home.  They  were  now  relieved  from  financial  pressure  ; 
but  Mrs.  Stowe's  health  was  still  delicate;  and  in  1853  she  went  with  her  hus- 
band and  brother  to  England,  where  she  received,  much  to  her  surprise,  a  uni- 
versal welcome.  She  made  many  friends  among  the  most  distinguished  people 
in  Great  Britain,  and  on  the  continent  as  well.  On  her  return  she  wrote  the 
*'  Key  to  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  and  began  "  Dred,  a  Tale  of  the  Dismal  Swamp." 
In  fact,  her  literary  career  was  just  beginning.  With  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  her 
powers  seemed  only  to  be  fairly  awakened.  One  work  after  another  came  in 
quick  succession.  For  nearly  thirty  years  after  the  publication  of  "  Uncle 
Tom,"  her  pen  was  never  idle.  In  1854  she  published  "Sunny  Memories  of 
Foreign  Lands,"  and  then,  in  rapid  succession,  "The  Minister's  Wooing,"  "The 
Pearl  of  Orr's  Island,"  "Agnes  of  Sorrento,"  "House  and  Home  Papers," 
"  Little  Foxes,"  and  "  Oldtown  Folks."  These,  however,  are  but  a  small  part  of 
her  works.  Besides  more  than  thirty  books,  she  has  written  magazine  articles, 
short  stones,  and  sketches  almost  without  number.  She  has  entertained, 
instructed,  and  inspired  a  generation  born  long  after  the  last  slave  was  made 
free,  and  to  whom  the  great  question  which  once  convulsed  our  country  is  only 
a  name.  But  her  first  great  work  has  never  been  surpassed,  and  it  will  never 
be  forgotten.  The  evil  system  which  produced  the  story  has  long  since  passed 
away  ;  but  "  Uncle  Tom  "  still  lives  in  immortal  youth.  Our  hearts  still  tremble 
for  Eliza  and  her  child ;  they  exult  over  George  Harris's  defense  ;  they  burn  at 
the  words  of  St.  Clare,  and  they  sink  within  us  at  Uncle  Tom's  death.  Who  can 
read  unmoved  the  story  of  Cassy's  life,  or  of  poor  Topsy  hiding  away  in  her 
bosom  the  keepsake  of  her  lost  Eva  ?  And  what  man  but  can  understand  the 
feelings  of  George  Shelby,  when,  kneeling  by  the  new-made  grave  of  Uncle 
Tom,  he  says,  "  Witness,  eternal  God,  that  from  this  hour  I  will  do  what  one 
man  can  to  drive  this  curse  of  slavery  from  my  land  ! " 

After  the  war  which  accomplished  the  abolidon  of  slavery,  Mrs.  Stowe  lived 
in  Hartford,  Connecticut,  in  summer,  and  spent  the  winters  in  Florida,  where 
she  bought  a  luxurious  home.  Her  pen  was  hardly  ever  idle ;  and  the  popu- 
larity of  her  works  seemed  to  steadily  increase. 

The  most  noteworthy  event  of  Mrs,  Stowe's  later  years  was  the  celebra- 


HARRIET  BEECH ER  STOWE, 

tion  of  her  seventieth  birthday,  on  June  14,  1882,  Her  publishers,  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  arranged  a  reception  for  her  in  the  form  of  a  garden  party  at 
the  "Old  Elms,"  the  home  of  ex-Governor  Claflin  of  Massachusetts,  in  one  of 
Boston's  most  beautiful  suburbs.  The  assembly  "gathered  to  do  honor  to  Mrs. 
Stowe  that  lovely  June  afternoon  comprised  two  hundred  of  the  most  distin- 
guished and  best  known  among  the  literary  men  and  women  of  the  day. 

As  the  guests  arrived  they  were  presented  to  Mrs.  Stowe  by  Mr.  H.  O. 
Houghton,  and  then  they  gathered  in  groups  in  the  parlors,  on  the  verandas, 
on  the  lawn,  and  in  the  refreshment  room.  At  five  o'clock  they  assembled  in 
the  large  tent  on  the  lawn,  when  Mr.  Houghton,  as  host,  addressed  to  his  guest 
and  her  friends  a  few  words  of  congratulation  and  welcome. 

Poems  written  for  the  occasion  by  John  G.  Whittier,  Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes, 
Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney,  Miss  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps,  Mr.  J.  T.  Trowbridge, 
Mrs.  Allen  (Mrs.  Stowe's  daughter),  Mrs.  Annie  Fields,  and  Miss  Charlotte  F. 
Bates  were  also  read,  and  speeches  were  made  by  Judge  Albion  W.  Tourgee 
and  others  prominent  in  the  literary  world. 

Letters  from  many  noted  people  who  were  prevented  from  being  present 
were  read  or  placed  in  Mrs.  Stowe's  hands.  The  exercises  were  closed  by  a 
few  words  from  Mrs.  Stowe  herself  As  she  came  to  the  front  of  the  platform 
the  whole  company  rose,  and  remained  standing  until  she  had  finished.  Her 
address  was  brief  and  simple, — a  few  words  of  thanksgiving  for  the  great  work 
wrought  by  God's  hand  in  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  of  loving  trust  that  "all 
things  work  together  for  good."  "  If  any  of  you  have  doubt,  or  sorrow,  or  pain, 
if  you  doubt  about  this  world,  just  remember  what  God  has  done  ;  just  remem- 
ber that  this  great  sorrow  of  slavery  has  gone,  gone  by  forever.  .  .  .  Let  us 
never  doubt.     Everything  that  ought  to  happen  is  going  to  happen." 

Mrs.  Stowe  died  at  her  home  in  Hartford,  July  i,  1896. 

The  last  stanza  of  Whittier' s  beautiful  poem  may  fittingly  close  this  brief 

sketch : — 

"  Ah,  dearer  than  the  praise  that  stirs 
The  air  to-day,  our  love  is  hers  ! 
She  needs  no  guaranty  of  fame 
Whose  own  is  linked  with  Freedom's  name. 
Long  ages  after  ours  shall  keep 
Her  memory  living  while  we  sleep ; 
The  waves  that  wash  our  gray  coast  lines, 
The  winds  that  rock  the  Southern  pines, 
Shall  sing  of  her ;  the  unending  years 
Shall  tell  her  tale  in  unborn  ears. 
And  when,  with  sins  and  follies  past, 
Are  numbered  color-hate  and  caste, 
White,  black,  and  red  shall  own  as  one 
The  noblest  work  by  woman  done." 


"THE   HEAVEN-SENT  ANGEL  OF   MERCY  AND 
PRISON   REFORfl,'* 

DOROTHEA    DIX. 


^  On  the  eve  of  July   17th,    1887,  an  old 

woman,  eighty- five  years  of  age,  was  laid 
to  rest  in  Mt.  Auburn  Cemetery,  near 
Boston,  a  place  dear  to  all  Americans  for 
the  distinguished  dead  who  sleep  beneath 
its  soil.  Here  may  be  seen  the  monuments 
of  Hawthorne,  Thoreau,  Longfellow,  LoweU 
Margaret  Fuller,  and  Dorothea  Dix.  Ana 
— may  we  not  say  it? — the  greatest  of 
these  was  Dorothea,  the  teacher,  the  prison 
reformer,  the  hospital  nurse,  "the  heaven- 
sent angel  of  mercy"  to  the  insane  and 
the  afflicted  of  every  nation — the  combined 
Florence  Nightingale  and  John  Howard  of 
America, 

Dorothea  Lynde  Dix  was  born  in 
Hampden,  Maine,  on  the  4th  day  of  April, 
1802.  Her  father,  Joseph  Dix,  was  an 
improvident  man,  without  any  permanent 
home,  Vv^andering  from  place  to  place.  He 
was  almost  fanatically  religious,  and  employed  his  time  largely  in  writing 
tracts.  When  Dorothea  was  twelve  years  old  we  find  her  at  Worcester, 
Mass.,  stitching  these  tracts  together.  She  had  litde  opportunity  for  education, 
and,  galling  under  the  thirst  for  knowledge,  which  she  found  no  opportunity 
for  satisfvine  so  long-  as  she  remained  with  her  father,  this  twelve-year-old 
girl  boldly  ran  away  from  Worcester,  and  in  some  way  reached  the  home  of  her 
maternal  grandmother,  Dorothea  Lynde,  for  whom  she  was  named. 

Mrs.  Lynde  was  a  very  stern  woman,  but  her  house  afforded  food  and 
clothing,  if  it  did  not  supply  that  sunshine  so  necessary  to  the  proper  develop- 
ment of  childhood.  In  Boston  also  had  formerly  lived  her  paternal  grandfather, 
who  was  a  prominent  physician  and  had  a  drug  store  in  South  Boston.  He 
was  also  a  manufacturing  chemist.  He  was  a  man  of  great  public  spirit,  strong 
will  and  energy,  and  it  was  from  him  that  Dorothea  inherited  those  qualities 

303 


DOROTHEA   LYNDE  DIX. 


fl 


304 


"  THE  HEAVEN-SENT  ANGEL  OF  MERCY  AND  PRISON  REFORM.  " 


of  greatness  which  often  skip  the  direct  son  or  daughter  and  find  lodgement 
in  the  grandchildren.  The  little  girl  was  much  attached  to  her  grandfather, 
and  she  declared  that  she  remembered  him  as  the  one  bright  recollection  of 
her  childhood,  though  he  died  when  she  was  only  seven  years  of  age. 

At  thirteen  the  girl  realized  that  she  must  not  only  take  care  of  herself, 
but  that  the  support  of  her  mother  and  two  younger  brothers,  who  were  then 
babies  of  one  and  three  years,  was  likely  to  devolve  upon  her.  She  therefore 
studied  hard,  and  at  fourteen  went  back  to  Worcester,  where  she  taught  a 
school  for  little  children.  To  make  herself  look  more  womanly  she  changed 
the  garb  of  a  child  for  the  dress  of  a  woman,  and  her  dignified  demeanor 
made  her  appear  several  years  older  than  she  really  was.  She  afterwards 
returned  to  Boston,  where  at  nineteen  years  of  age  she  opened  a  school  in 
her  grandmother's  house,  and  the  prominent  families  not  only  from  that  city 
but  from  other  cities,  even  as  far  away  as  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  sent  their  chil- 
dren to  her.  Here  she  also  brought  her  two  little  brothers,  for  whom  she  was 
now  providing,  as  well  as  for  her  mother.  The  sight  of  the  poor  and  neglected 
children  in  the  neighborhood  often  roused  the  deepest  sympathy  in  the  heart 
of  Dorothea  for  the  poor  people.  She  remembered  the  neglect  of  her  own 
education  in  her  childhood,  and  longed  to  do  what  she  could  for  these  little 
waifs.  She  therefore  prevailed  upon  her  grandmother  to  let  her  open  a  school 
in  the  barn  for  the  poor  children,  which  she  taught  after  the  hours  of  her 
regular  day  school  were  over. 

She  was  now  the  superintendent  of  her  grandmother's  house.  She  took 
care  of  the  aged  woman,  her  two  brothers  and  her  own  mother,  and  taught  the 
two  schools.  It  is  said  that  she  always  arose  before  daylight,  and  seldom  retired 
until  after  the  clock  struck  twelve  at  niofht.  Who  would  think  she  had  time  for 
other  things  besides  the  above-mentioned  tasks  ?  Yet  during  this  same  period 
she  wrote  a  book  entitled  "Conversations  on  Common  Things,"  which  has  gone 
through  sixty  editions. 

It  is  not  strange  that  under  such  pressure  her  health  failed,  and  in 
1827,  at  the  age  of  25,  she  was  forced  to  give  up  her  school  for  awhile.  She 
accepted  the  lighter  duties  of  a  governess  for  one  summer  in  a  country  home 
at  Portsmouth,  R.  I.  Here,  besides  teaching  the  children  of  the  family,  which 
simple  task  she  regarded  a  season  of  rest  and  pleasure,  she  studied  sea  shells 
and  other  departments  of  natural  history.  She  was  unable  to  resume  her  school 
duties  for  the  next  three  or  four  years,  but  she  was  far  from  idle.  During  this 
time  she  compiled  several  books  of  a  devotional  character.  In  1830  she  went 
with  the  family  of  Dr.  Channing  to  the  West  India  Islands,  where  she  made 
collections  of  tropical  plants  and  birds,  some  of  which  she  presented  to  the 
great  naturalist  Audubon.  In  1831  she  reopened  her  school  at  the  home  of 
her  grandmother,  wh^re  §he  carried  out  her  owr^  jdeas  as  to  education, 


HER  REAL  LIFEWORK  BEGUN.  305 

In  1836  the  health  of  this  indefatigable  worker  failed  again.  Her  physiciah 
recommended  a  trip  abroad,  and  armed  with  letters  from  Dr.  Channing  she 
went  to  Liverpool,  where  at  the  house  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Rathbone, 
wealthy  Unitarians — which  was  her  own  faith — she  spent  a  most  delightful  year, 
completely  regaining  her  health.  During  this  absence,  however,  both  her  mother 
and  grandmother  died  in  America.  Her  brothers  had  grown  to  manhood  and 
become  self-supporting,  and  the  property  left  her  by  the  death  of  her  grand- 
parent was  sufficient  to  make  her  comfortable  through  life. 

It  was  in  1841,  when  thirty-nine  years  of  age,  that  the  real  lifework  of 
Dorothea  Dix  began.  She  was  asked  to  teach  a  Sunday-school  class  of  women 
in  the  East  Cambridge  House  of  Correction.  Here  she  discovered  that  the 
women  whom  she  was  expected  to  teach  were  ill-fed  and  uncomfortably  clothed. 
She  reasoned  that  it  was  idle  to  attempt  to  teach  Christianity  to  those  whose 
bodies  were  not  cared  for.  An  investigation  was  made,  and  it  was  found  that 
the  jail  was  not  only  overcrowded  and  filthy,  but  that  innocent  and  guilty,  sane 
and  insane  were  all  crowded  together.  The  thermometer  was  below  zero  ;  still 
there  was  no  fire  in  the  jail.  The  jailer's  explanation  was  that  it  was  not  needed 
and  it  was  not  safe. 

Duty  had  too  long  been  the  watchword  of  Dorothea  Dix  for  her  to  keep 
silent  and  do  nothing.  She  at  once  applied  to  that  noble  philanthropist.  Dr.  S. 
G.  Howe,  who  made  a  careful  investigation  of  the  matter  and  wrote  a  letter  to 
the  Boston  Advertiser.  Charles  Sumner,  too,  added  his  voice.  Of  course,  the 
statements  were  denied  by  those  In  charge  of  the  jail,  but  the  matter  was  car- 
ried to  the  courts,  and  the  rooms  were  soon  cleaned  and  warmed. 

Without  knowing  it,  Miss  Dix  had  now  begun  her  lifework  at  thirty-nine. 
It  was  to  know  little  or  no  cessation  for  nearly  fifty  years  Alone  and  unaided, 
she  determined  to  see  whether  the  other  prisons  and  almshouses  in  Massachusetts 
were  like  the  one  in  East  Cambridge.  She  was  a  delicate  and  sensitive  woman, 
but  heroic  when  there  was  a  duty  to  be  performed.  She  went  over  the  State 
carefully,  notebook  in  hand.  Another  woman,  without  the  authority  of  town 
or  State,  would  not  have  dared  perhaps  to  ask  jailers  to  open  doors.  She 
dared,  and  entered,  and  observed  closely. 

When  her  examinations  had  been  made  she  wrote  her  memorial  to  the 
State  Legislature  of  Massachusetts,  stating  concisely  and  clearly  what  she  had 
seen.  "I  proceed,  gentlemen,"  she  said,  "to  call  your  attention  to  the  present 
state  of  insane  persons  confined  within  this  Commonwealth  in  cages,  closets,  cel- 
lars, stalls,  pens ;  chained,  naked,  beaten  zuith  rods,  and  lashed  into  obedience." 

When  the  memorial  of  Miss  Dix  was  published  the  State  was  shocked  at 
the  revelation.  The  almshouse  keepers  pronounced  the  incidents  "sensational 
and  slanderous  lies  !"  The  keepers  had  visions  of  near-at-hand  struggles  to 
obtain  new  positions,   as  many  would  inevitably  Ipse  their  places.     Some 


3o6     "  THE  HEA  VEN-SENT  ANGEL  OF  MERCY  AND  PRISON  REFORM, " 

jJersons  declared  that  this  public  work  of  searching  out  misdeeds  was  unbe- 
coming in  a  woman.  Alas  J  this  has  been  the  old  argument  used  since  the 
time  of  Eve.  But  gentle  yet  firm  Dorothea  Dix  went  quietly  on  her  way, 
trusting  in  God  and  in  the  righteousness  of  her  cause.  Additional  buildings 
were  soon  erected  for  the  insane,  and  many  evils  remedied. 

But  Miss  Dix  was  satisfied  that  if  such  things  were  found  in  the  pro- 
gressive State  of  Massachusetts,  other  States  needed  her  keen  eyes  and  fear- 
less heart.  Perhaps  she  shrank  from  the  labor  and  the  unpleasantness.  All 
the  same,  she  went  forward, 

Rhode  Island  was  her  next  field  for  operations.  She  visited  unobtrusively 
the  institutions,  and  made  notes  through  several  months.  The  stories  she 
tells  of  misery,  suffering,  and  cruelty  were  enough  to  melt  a  heart  of  stone. 
They  could  hardly  be  credited  now,  since  her  labor  has  wrought  such  changes. 
All  over  Rhode  Island  Miss  Dix  found  mismanagement,  lack  of  accommo- 
dation and  inhumanity,  unknown  to  the  public.  When  one  of  the  leading  men 
of  the  State  presented  the  memorial  which  she  had  prepared,  the  people  were 
shocked,  as  they  had  been  in  Massachusetts. 

What  was  to  be  done?  The  small  asylum  in  the  city  of  Providence  needed 
enlarging.  She  determined  to  visit  a  well-known  millionaire  and  ask  his  aid. 
People  smiled  at  her  hopeless  errand,  for  Mr.  Butler  had  not  been  a  giver  of 
his  wealth.  She  laid  the  matter  before  him,  with  her  almost  unsurpassed  ear- 
nestness and  eloquence.  He  listened,  spell-bound,  and  then  said,  abruptly, 
"What  do  you  want  me  to  do?" 

"  Sir,  I  want  you  to  give  ^50,000  toward  the  enlargement  of  the  insane 
hospital  in  this  city." 

"Madam,  I'll  do  it!"  was  his  answer;  and  "Butler  Hospital"  was  the 
result. 

New  Jersey  was  the  next  State  visited,  and  Honorable  Joseph  S.  Dodd 
presented  her  memorial.  And  then,  as  usual,  followed  some  of  her  hardest 
work.  As  soon  as  the  memorial  was  published,  she  began  to  write  editorials 
for  the  press  and  letters  to  prominent  persons,  urging  them  to  use  their  pens 
and  their  voices  for  whatever  measure  was  proposed. 

Miss  Dix  met  with  all  sorts  of  obstacles.  People  did  not  like  to  be  taxed, 
either  for  the  sane  or  the  insane.  Some  called  her  a  "  Heaven-sent  Angel  of 
Mercy,"  and  immediately  voted  against  her  bill.  Some  wished  she  had  never 
come  into  their  State ;  but  always,  when  the  hard  work  had  been  done,  and  the 
bill  passed,  and  a  noble  institution  built,  then  the  Legislature  and  the  people 
always  passed  a  vote  of  thanks,  and  believed,  as  she  herself  believed,  "  that  she 
was  called  by  Providence  to  the  vocation  to  which  life,  talents  and  fortune  have 
been  surrendered  these  many  years." 

While  working  in  New  Jersey  she  had  also  been  laboring  in  Pennsylvania, 


ARDUOUS  LABOR  OF  LOVE.  307 

and  in  1845  t>n]s  for  State  insane  asylums  were  carried  in  each  State.  Besides 
work  in  these  two  States,  she  visited  the  State  prisons  of  Louisiana  at  Baton 
Rouge,  of  Mississippi  at  Jackson,  of  Arkansas  at  Litde  Rock,  of  Missouri  at 
Jefferson  City,  and  of  lUinois  at  Alton.  During-  the  three  years  ending  with 
1845  Miss  Dix  travelled,  in  her  arduous  labors  of  love,  over  ten  thousand 
miles. 

In  many  other  States — North  Carolina,  Mississippi,  Tennessee,  Indiana, 
Kentucky,  Maryland — she  accomplished  much.  She  knew  no  such  word  as 
failure.  When  told,  "Nothing  can  be  done  here!"  she  replied,  "I  know  no 
such  word  in  the  vocabulary  I  adopt."  She  used  to  say,  "The  tonic  I  need  is 
the  tonic  of  opposition.  That  always  sets  me  on  my  feet."  And  she  had  that 
peculiar  tonic  administered  in  large  quantity  through  life. 

She  was  consulted  about  proper  sites  for  asylums,  methods  of  building,  the 
right  persons  to  be  placed  in  charge  and  a  thousand  matters  that  taxed  heart 
and  brain.  She  was  always  collecting  from  the  many  homes  where  she  found 
a  warm  welcome,  such  things  as  music-boxes,  minerals,  puzzles,  birds'  nests, 
flowers,  toys,  with  which  to  amuse  the  poor  insane  creatures  whom  she  had 
seen  shut  up  alone  and  in  darkness. 

What  wonder  that  the  people  looked  upon  her  as  an  angel  of  mercy  !  Dr. 
Francis  Lieber  wrote  from  Columbia,  S.  C,  to  George  S.  Hillard,  of  Boston : 
"What  a  heroine  she  is!  May  God  protect  her!  Over  the  whole  breadth  and 
length  of  the  land  are  her  footsteps,  and  where  she  steps  flowers  of  the  richest 
odor  of  humanity  are  sprouting  and  blooming  as  on  an  angel's  path.  I  have 
the  highest  veneration  for  her  heart,  and  will,  and  head." 

She  did  not  confine  her  work  to  asylums  and  prisons,  but  wherever  there 
was  suffering  and  want  there  she  was  at  home.  As  early  as  1848  she  had 
endeavored  to  obtain  from  Congress  a  grant  of  five  million  acres  of  land,  the 
proceeds  of  the  sale  to  be  a  perpetual  fund  for  the  care  of  the  indigent  insane, 
to  be  divided  among  the  States  according  to  population.  In  her  memorial 
to  Congress  she  said:  "I  have  myself  ^een  7nore  than  nine  thousand  idiots, 
epileptics  and  insane  in  these  United  States,  destitute  of  appropriate  care  and 
protection!'  By  the  courtesy  of  Congress,  an  alcove  in  the  Capitol  Library 
was  set  apart  for  Miss  Dix,  where  she  could  converse  with  the  members. 
The  bill  was  deferred  that  session,  from  press  of  other  matters. 

In  1850  she  appealed  again  to  Congress,  this  time  for  12,225,000  acres, 
ten  millions  of  which  should  be  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  insane,  and  the  rest 
for  the  blind,  and  deaf  and  dumb.  She  went  to  the  Capitol  Library  and  worked 
daily  as  before.  She  rose  at  four  or  five  in  the  morning,  spent  an  hour  in 
private  devodons,  to  strengthen  her  for  her  work,  wrote  letters  on  her  varied 
work  all  over  the  country,  and  at  ten  o'clock  was  ready  to  meet  and  talk  with 
the  members  about  her  beloved  project.     The  bill  was  again  deferred,  after 


5o8     "  THE  HEA  VEN-SENT  ANGEL  OF  MERCY  AND  PRISON  REFORM.  " 

passing  in  the  House,  and  1851  saw  her  a  third  time  at  her  post  of  duty, 
working  and  waiting. 

This  year  it  passed  in  the  Senate,  but  was  deferred  before  the  House.  Two 
years  later,  in  1854,  she  saw  her  12,225,000-acre  bill  carried  triumphantly 
through  the  House  and  the  Senate,  both  Democratic.  She  was  of  course 
enthusiastic  and  thankful.  But  President  Franklin  Pierce,  who  had  assured 
her  personally  of  his  deep  interest  in  the  measure,  to  the  astonishment  of  Miss 
Dix  as  well  as  of  all  her  co-workers  all  over  the  country,  vetoed  the  bill, 
declaring  that  he  did  so  from  constitutional  reasons,  as  also  from  expediency. 
For  the  first  time  in  her  life  Miss  Dix  was  prostrated  by  the  unexpected  disap- 
pointment, after  six  years  of  labor,  since  1848.  It  seemed  necessary  for  her 
to  go  abroad  if  her  life  was  to  be  prolonged. 

She  sailed  in  September,  1854,  in  the  "Arctic,"  which  on  the  return  trip 
went  down  with  all  on  board.  Mr.  E.  K.  Collins,  the  chief  owner  of  the  line, 
declined  any  passage  money  from  Miss  Dix,  saying  with  emotion  when  she 
thanked  him,  "The  nation,  madam,  owes  you  a  debt  of  gratitude  which  it  can 
never  repay,  and  of  which  I,  as  an  individual,  am  only  too  happy  to  be  thus 
privileged  to  mark  my  sense." 

Miss  Dix  rested  for  some  weeks  with  her  friends,  the  Rathbones,  in  Liver- 
pool, and  then  started  for  Scotland  to  look  into  the  asylums  and  hospitals  of 
that  country.  She  found  what  Lord  Shaftesbury  had  found — no  provision 
{o'c  pauper  lunatics.  When  this  matter  was  brought  before  the  country,  petitions 
poured  in  against  taxing  the  land  for  the  insane  poor.  If  rich  they  were  cared 
for  in  private  hospitals ;  if  poor  they  languished  in  almshouses,  prisons,  or 
police  stations. 

Miss  Dix,  ill  though  she  was,  went  about  the  work  in  earnest.  She  visited 
the  workhouses  and  private  dwellings  where  the  idiots  and  lunatics  were  stowed 
away,  and,  finding  many  abuses  to  be  corrected,  she  determined  to  ask  the  Home 
Secretary,  Sir  George  Grey,  in  London,  for  a  committee  of  investigation. 

The  Lord  Provost  of  Edinburgh  learning  of  her  determination,  and  oppos- 
ing it,  also  hastened  to  London,  hoping  to  meet  the  Home  Secretary  before  she 
did.  "The  Lord  Provost  stopped  to  have  his  trunk  packed,"  says  Mr.  Tiffany, 
"and  to  journey  comfortably  by  day.  Miss  Dix  grasped  a  hand-bag  and 
boarded  the  night  train."  She  was  twelve  hours  ahead  of  the  Lord  Provost, 
met  the  Home  Secretary,  by  the  aid  of  the  noble  Shaftesbury,  the  commission 
was  appointed,  and  the  report  was  made  to  Parliament  in  1857. 

Of  course  the  country  was  shocked.  The  member  for  Aberdeen  charac- 
terized the  report  of  the  commissioners  as  "one  of  the  most  horrifying  docu- 
ments he  had  ever  seen.  It  was  a  state  of  things  which  they  could  not  before 
have  believed  to  prevail  in  any  civilized  country,  much  less  in  this  country,  which 
made  peculiar  claims  to  civilization,  and  boasted  of  its  religious  and  humane 


TOUR  OF  MERCY  ROUND  THE  WORLD.  309 

principles.  .  .  .  Distressing  as  were  the  cases  which  he  had  mentioned, 
there  were  others  ten  times  worse  remaining-  behind — so  horrible,  indeed,  that 
he  durst  not  venture  to  shock  the  feelings  of  the  House  by  relating  them." 

Sir  George  Grey  deplored,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  the  bringing 
about  of  this  needed  reform  should  have  been  left  to  a  "  foreigner,  and  that 
foreigner  a  woman,  and  that  woman  a  dissenter."  But  the  reforms  were  made, 
and  she  received  thanks  and  praise  from  the  physician  of  the  Queen  for  the 
improvements  she  wrought.  Thence  she  visited  France,  where  the  prisons, 
asylums,  and  hospitals  were  thrown  open  to  her  without  exception. 

Next  she  visited  Italy.  In  Genoa,  Turin,  Naples,  Florence,  and  Rome  she 
gave  no  time  to  art,  but  all  her  time  to  the  suffering.  Pope  Pius  IX.  granted 
her  audience,  and  at  her  request  drove  unannounced  to  the  insane  asylum  and 
made  a  personal  inspection.  Cardinal  Antonelli  entered  heartily  into  her  plans. 
From  the  island  of  Corfu  she  wrote  to  a  friend :  "  You  will  not  be  more  sur- 
prised than  I  am  that  I  find  travelling  alone  perfectly  easy.  I  get  into  all  the 
hospitals  and  all  the  prisons  I  have  time  to  see  or  strength  to  explore.  I  take 
no  refusals,  and  yet  I  speak  neither  Italian,  German,  Greek,  nor  Slavonic." 

In  Greece  and  Turkey  it  was  always  the  same  kind  reception,  the  same 
Godspeed  to  a  noble  woman  who  was  living  to  benefit  the  world.  From  Con- 
stantinople she  went  to  Russia,  Sweden,  Norway,  Denmark,  Holland,  Bel- 
gium, and  Germany,  always  on  the  one  errand  of  mercy.  She  returned  to 
America  in  September,  1856,  after  an  absence  of  two  years,  and  resumed 
the  work  of  caring  for  her  various  institutions,  as  though  she  had  been  away 
from  school  for  a  brief  vacation.  She  raised  money  for  her  work,  asking  in 
the  various  States  for  more  than  a  third  of  a  million  dollars  !  She  was  glad 
of  the  work  to  do;  "otherwise,"  she  said  in  1861,  "the  state  of  our  beloved 
country  would  crush  my  heart  and  life." 

The  Civil  War  came  with  that  first  gun  fired  by  the  Confederates  at  Fort 
Sumter  at  daybreak,  April  12,  1861.  Three  days  later  President  Lincoln  called 
for  75,000  volunteers  for  three  months'  service.  Among  the  first  to  respond 
was  the  Sixth  Massachusetts  Regiment,  some  of  them  lads  under  twenty — the 
first  full  regiment  to  enter  the  war.  The  Sixth  Regiment,  in  passing  through 
Baltimore  on  its  way  to  Washington,  was  stoned  and  insulted  by  a  vast  mob, 
and  several  were  killed. 

Only  three  hours  after  this  bloodshed  in  Baltimore  Miss  Dix  reached 
that  city,  and  with  difficulty  took  the  last  train  which  was  permitted  to  leave 
'  for  Washington.  Again  the  work  was  ready  for  her,  and  she  was  ready  for 
I  the  work.  At  once  she  reported  herself,  with  some  nurses,  at  the  War  Depart- 
;  ment  for  free  service  in  the  hospitals.  She  was  immediately  appointed  by 
{  Simon  Cameron,  Secretary  of  War,  "  Superintendent  of  Women  Nurses,  to 
j  select  and  assign  women  nurses  to  general  or  permanent  military  hospitals, 


3IO 


"  THE  HEA  VEN-SENT  ANGEL  OF  MERCY  AND  PRISON  REFORM. " 


they  not  to  be  employed  in  such  hospitals  without  her  sanction  and  approval, 
except  in  cases  of  urgent  need." 

She  had  entered  upon  a  work  herculean  in  its  proportions.  She  had  thou- 
sands of  women  to  superintend,  the  generous  gifts  of  a  great  nation  to  help 
distribute,  the  sick  and  dying  to  befriend,  and  many  factions  to  conciliate.  What 
wonder  that  the  frail  woman  of  sixty  did  not  always  agree  with  the  surgeons ! 
What  wonder  if  she  sometimes  seemed  arbitrary  and  severe  ! 

'*  Her  whole  soul  was  in  her  work,"  says  Mrs.  Livermore.  "  She  rented 
two  large  houses  as  depots  for  the  sanitary  supplies  sent  to  her  care,  and  houses 
of  rest  and  refreshment  for  nurses  and  convalescent  soldiers.  She  employed 
two  secretaries,  owned  ambulances,  and  kept  them  busily  employed,  printed 

and  distributed  cir- 
culars, went  hither 
and  thither  from  one 
remote  point  to  an- 
other in  her  visita- 
tions of  hospitals,  ad- 
justed disputes,  set- 
tled difficulties  where 
her  nurses  were  con- 
cerned, undertook 
long  journeys  by 
land  and  by  water, 
and  paid  all  expenses 
incurred  from  her 
private  purse.  Her 
fortune,  time  and 
strength  were  laid  on 
the  altar  of  her  coun- 
try in  its  hour  of 
trial." 
During  the  long  four  years  of  the  war  she  never  took  a  day's  vacation. 
She  had  to  be  reminded  often  to  take  her  meals,  so  completely  was  her  mind 
absorbed  by  her  work.  What  a  pity  that  she  did  not  keep  a  record  of  some  of 
the  heroic  and  pathetic  incidents  of  which  those  days  were  full,  as  she  minis- 
tered to  the  soldiers — incidents  that  are  the  only  bright  gleams  amid  all  the 
dark  shadows  of  war ! 

When  the  war  was  over,  the  Hon.  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  who  had  then 
become  Secretary  of  War,  asked  her  how  the  nation  could  best  show  her  its 
appreciation  of  her  invaluable  services — either  by  a  great  public  meeting  or  a 
vote  of  money  by  Congress.     She  declined  both  absolutely,  but  said,  "I  would 


DOROTHEA  DIX,  SUPERINTENDENT   OF  ALL   THE  WOMEN  ARMY 
HOSPITAL  NURSES. 

Her  services  were  rendered  without  compensation,  and  during  the  whole  four  years  she 
would  not  take  one  day's  vacation." 


HER  LAST  YEARS.  3 1 1 

like  the  flags  of  my  country."  A  beautiful  pair  of  flags  were  made  for  her  by 
the  direction  of  the  Government,  and  sent  to  her,  "  In  token  and  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  inestimable  services  rendered  by  Miss  Dorothea  L.  Dix  for  the 
Care,  Succor  and  Relief  of  the  Sick  and  Wounded  Soldiers  of  the  United 
States  on  the  Battle-field,  in  Camps  and  Hospitals,  during  the  recent  war,  and 
of  her  benevolent  and  diligent  labors  and  devoted  efforts  to  do  whatever  might 
contribute  to  their  comfort  and  welfare."  These  national  colors  were  be- 
queathed by  Miss  Dix  to  Harvard  College,  and  are  now  suspended  over  the 
main  portal  of  Memorial  Hall,  dedicated  to  the  sons  of  Harvard  who  gave 
their  lives  for  their  country. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  for  eighteen  months.  Miss  Dix  carried  on  a  very 
large  correspondence  with  the  families  of  the  soldiers  who  had  died  or  become 
invalids  under  her  charge,  and  obtained  pensions  for  them,  or  assisted  in  various 
ways.  She  became  responsible  for  the  erection  of  the  monument  at  the  Na- 
tional Cemetery  at  Hampton,  Va.,  near  Fortress  Monroe,  where  twelve  thou- 
sand Union  soldiers  are  buried. 

"  I  had  especial  direction  over  most  of  these,  martyred  to  a  sacred  cause," 
Miss  Dix  wrote  a  friend;  "and  never  forofot  the  countless  last  messages  of 
hundreds  of  dying  men  to  fathers,  mothers,  wives  and  children.  By  her  per- 
sonal efforts,  for  the  monument  fund,  she  raised  eight  thousand  dollars  among 
her  friends,  visited  the,  quarries  of  Maine  and  selected  the  granite,  and  wrote 
General  Grant  for  "one  thousand  muskets  and  bayonets,  fifteen  rifled  guns 
and  a  quantity  of  twenty-four-pound  shot,"  for  a  fence,  which  he  at  once  granted. 
The  monument  is  seventy-five  feet  high,  on  a  base  of  twenty-seven  feet  square, 
inclosed  by  a  circular  fence,  with  the  muskets  and  cannon  set  in  blocks  of  stone. 
On  it  are  the  words:  "In  Memory  of  Union  Soldiers  who  Died  to  Maintain 
the  Laws." 

At  sixty-five  she  took  up  again  her  work  for  the  insane.  For  fifteen  years, 
gently  but  efficiently  she  did  her  manifold  work  for  humanity.  At  eighty,  a 
home  having  been  urgently  tendered  her  at  the  asylum  in  Trenton,  N.  J.,  the 
first  one  which  she  had  caused  to  be  built  in  America,  she  accepted  the  offer, 
and  there  ended  her  days. 

Precious  letters  came  to  Miss  Dix  in  the  asylum  from  all  over  the  country. 
Whittier  wrote  from  Oak  Knoll,  Danvers :  "Thou  hast  done  so  much  for 
others,  that  it  is  right  for  thee  now,  in  age  and  illness,  to  be  kindly  ministered 
to.     He  who  has  led  thee  in  thy  great  work  of  benevolence  will  never  leave 

1     thee  nor  forsake  thee." 

I  General  S.  C.  Armstrong  wrote  her:  "You  are  one  of  my  heroes.     My 

ideal  is  not  one  who  gives  the  flush  and  strength  of  youth  to  good  work,  for 

I     who  can  help  doing  so  when  a  chance  opens  ?     .     .     .     But  you  kept  in  the 

I     field  long  past  your  best  days.    Your  grit  and  resolve  have  been  wonderful." 
19S&D 


SLAVERY*^  ENEMY  AND  FREEDOn^S  FRIEND, 


LUCRETIA    MOTT. 


*'The  Flower  of  Quakerism,"  "The 
Advance  Agent  of  Emancipation,"  "The 
Invincible  Warrior  in  Righteous  Causes," 
"The  Sweet-spirited  Advocate  of  Justice, 
Love  and  Humanity."  Such  are  some  of 
the  definitions  the  world  has  set  opposite 
the  name  of  Lucretia  Mott  in  the  diction- 
ary of  fame. 

It  was    on    the  little   island  of  Nan- 
tucket, on  the  3d  day  of  January,   1793, 
that   Lucretia  Coffin    first    saw  the   light. 
She  came  of  a  race  "  ennobled,"  as  Ruskin 
says,  "  by  purity  of  moral  habit  for  many 
generations."     Of  her   parents,    Thomas 
and  Anna  Coffin,  it  may  be  said  that  they 
lived    not  only  without   reproach,  but   in 
^  perfect  innocence  and  uprightness.     Her 
mother  was  a  woman  of  noble  character 
and   remarkable  energy.     Upon    her   the 
earlier  training  of  her  children    mainly  depended,  for   her   husband,  Thomas 
Coffin,  was  a  seafaring  man,  engaged  in  the  whaling  and  sealing  fisheries,  and 
was,  consequently,  at  home  only  for  brief  intervals. 

Lucretia  Mott  lived  on  the  island  of  Nantucket  until  she  was  eleven  years 
old.  At  that  time,  after  returning  from  a  perilous  voyage,  her  father  removed 
to  Boston  and  settled  in  business.  Lucretia  and  her  younger  sister,  whom  her 
father  called  "the  desirable  little  Elizabeth,"  entered  school,  and  at  length  they 
were  sent  to  a  Friends'  boarding-school  in  New  York,  where  they  remained  for 
three  years.  At  the  end  of  two  years,  and  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  Lucretia 
accepted  the  position  of  teacher  in  this  school.  Her  future  husband,  James 
Mott,  was  also  a  tutor  in  the  same  institution.  The  work  of  teaching,  in  addi- 
tion to  her  studies,  sorely  taxed  the  delicate  girl,  but  it  is  said  she  undertook  it 
to  help  her  father  and  that  her  younger  sister,  Elizabeth,  might  have  free  tuition. 
No  true  sketch  could  be  made  of  Mrs.  Mott  without  mention  of  this 
beloved  sister,  toward  whom,  through  life,  she  preserved  an  unalterable  affec- 


lucrp:tia  mott. 


313 


.UCRETIA  MOTT  PROTECTING  THE  NEGRO  DANGERKIELD  FROM  THE  MOB 
IN  PHILADELPHIA. 


MARRIAGE  AND  EARLY  DIFFICULTIES.  3 1 3 

tion.  For  seventy  years  the  two  sisters,  both  singularly  happy  in  their  own 
domestic  relations,  met  almost  daily.  Elizabeth  was  of  a  shy,  retiring  disposi- 
tion, but  of  an  unusual  clearness  of  judgment  and  subde  power  of  personal 
influence.  She  could  never  come  prominendy  before  the  public  herself,  but  it 
is  said  that  Lucreda,  in  everything  she  did,  sought  and  generally  followed  her 
counsel.  In  1809  the  Coffin  family  removed  to  Philadelphia,  and  two  years 
later,  when  Lucretia  was  eighteen,  she  became  the  wife  of  James  Mott  and  set- 
tled in  Philadelphia,  which  ever  afterward  remained  her  home. 

Professor  Mott  had  now  given  up  his  school  and  engaged  in  the  cotton 
business,  in  which  he  was  very  prosperous,  but  the  agitadon  in  the  Society  of 
Friends  over  the  slavery  question  went  so  far  as  to  recommend  cessation  of 
the  use  of  any  goods  or  materials  produced  by  slave  labor.  As  a  result,  James 
Mott  gave  up  the  cotton  business.  Other  dif^culties  beset  the  young  couple.' 
The  War  of  18 12  was  in  progress.  The  Embargo  Act,  prohibiting  trade  with 
England,  was  enforced,  and  a  great  depression  of  trade  resulted. 

It  seemed  impossible  for  Mr.  Mott  to  make  a  living.  To  add  to  the  greater 
stress,  Lucretia's  father  died,  and  her  mother  was  left  a  widow  with  five  children 
to  support.  Lucretia,  ever  cheerful  and  undaunted,  returned  to  her  old  voca- 
tion of  teaching,  and  in  this  way  managed  to  support,  not  only  her  own  family 
for  awhile,  but  to  supplement  her  mother's  efforts.  Let  us  add  here  that  later 
in  life  Mr.  Mott  went  into  the  wool  business,  from  which  he  amassed  a  hand- 
some fortune. 

In  18 1 8,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  Lucretia  Mott  took  her  place  as  a 
preacher  in  the  Society  of  Friends,  and  in  this  call  she  declared  the  most 
sacred  obligation  laid  upon  her  heart  was  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  slaves,  and, 
to  use  her  own  expression,  "to  put  my  soul  in  their  souls'  stead,  and  to  aid  all 
in  my  power  in  every  right  effort  for  their  emancipation."  She  thus  tells  her 
own  story  of  her  call,  or  impression,  to  preach:  "At  twenty-five  years  of  age, 
surrounded  by  a  little  family  and  many  cares,  I  felt  called  to  a  more  public  life 
of  devotion  to  duty,  and  engaged  in  the  ministry  of  our  Society,  receiving 
every  encouragement  from  those  in  authority,  until  a  separation  among  us  in 
1827,  when  my  convictions  led  me  to  adhere  to  the  sufficiency  of  the  light 
within  us,  resting  on  truth  as  an  authority,  rather  than  taking  authority  for 
truth."  (In  this  she  refers  to  the  secession  of  Elias  Hicks  and  his  followers 
from  the  Society  of  Friends,  when  she  adhered  to  the  "Hicksite"  party.) 
"The  popular  doctrine  of  human  depravity  never  recommended  itself  to  my 
reason  or  conscience.  I  searched  the  Scriptures  daily,  finding  a  construction  of 
the  text  wholly  different  from  that  which  was  pressed  upon  our  acceptance. 
The  highest  evidence  of  a  sound  faith  being  the  practical  life  of  a  Christian,  I 
have  felt  a  far  greater  interest  in  the  moral  movements  of  our  age  than  in  any 
theological  discussions." 


314  SLAVERY'S  ENEMY  AND  FREEDOM'S  FRIEND. 

Mrs.  Mott's  preaching  was  essentially  the  doctrine  of  liberty  ;  first,  liberty 
of  body,  liberty  of  thought,  liberty  of  soul,  liberty  from  the  demon  drink,  and, 
finally,  liberty  of  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  woman,  which  she  believed  was  her 
just  right. 

The  liberty  of  the  body  was  her  first  task.  Slavery  existed  in  all  the  Col- 
onies, even  the  Quakers  themselves  at  one  time  owning  slaves.  It  was  en- 
grafted into  our  Constitution.  The  Southern  States  are  not  responsible  for  its 
existence.  It  was  Yankee  enterprise,  hardly  more  than  a  dozen  years  after  the 
Dutch  landed  their  first  black  slaves  on  the  American  continent,  that  built  the 
first  American  slave  ship,  manned  it  and  sailed  it  from  a  port  in  Massachusetts. 
This  was  more  than  a  hundred  years  before  American  independence  was 
declared  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  adopted.  But  in  1774 
the  Society  of  Friends  made  it  unlawful  for  any  member  of  their  denomination 
to  own  slaves,  and  every  good  Quaker  freed  them.  As  time  went  on  this  little 
leaven  spread.  Changes  of  opinion  came  rapidly  in  the  sections  where  the 
Quaker  influence  was  felt ;  but  during  the  first  fifteen  years  of  the  Union  the 
slave  States  made  gigantic  strides  toward  power,  and  the  antislavery  (Quaker) 
sentiment  rapidly  drove  slavery  from  the  North.  Thus  were  the  sections 
divided,  and  thus  were  the  seeds  of  the  great  war  planted  which  half  a  century 
later  deluged  the  land  in  blood. 

During  all  the  period  between  1833,  when  the  Antislavery  Society  was 
formed  in  Philadelphia,  and  i860,  hardly  a  day  passed  without  some  effective 
effort  on  the  part  of  Lucretia  Mott  to  help  forward  the  cause  of  freedom.  She 
sheltered  and  aided  fugitive  slaves  ;  she  helped  and  befriended  free  colored 
people,  and  bore  unceasing  testimony  against  that  hostile  prejudice  shown 
toward  them,  which  she  declared  was  the  peculiar  sin  of  the  North  ;  she  trav- 
elled from  place  to  place  preaching  the  doctrine  of  emancipation,  and  few,  it  is 
said,  that  ever  heard  her  can  lose  the  memory  of  her  face,  full  of  sweet 
solemnity,  her  grave  tranquillity  of  manner,  and  the  singularly  full  and  musical 
tone  of  her  voice.  Her  discourses  were  usually  of  the  most  direct  and  simple 
character,  though  here  and  there  came  a  sentence  of  poetic  force  and  beauty 
which  suddenly  illuminated  the  theme  like  a  flash  of  light. 

But  there  was  trouble  from  another  quarter  least  to  be  expected,  and  most 
depressing.  Even  persons  of  her  own  religious  sect  (the  Quakers)  had  refused 
to  recognize  her  in  the  street,  which,  to  use  her  own  measured  expression, 
"had  caused  her  considerable  pain."  But  her  calm  and  gentle  manner  was 
never  ruffled,  and  words  of  complaint  rarely  passed  her  lips.  It  was  remark- 
able that  when  she  once  began  to  speak  her  most  insolent  opposers  seldom 
deigned  to  interrupt  her.  She  possessed  such  a  simplicity  and  unworldliness, 
together  with  a  natural  dignity  of  manner  and  gentleness,  that  it  gave  an  irre 
.'^istible  charm  to  her  presence.  Even  those  most  prejudiced  against  the  opin 
ions  she  represented  were,  on  meeting  her,  amazed  and  subdued. 


A 


777^  WORLD'S  ANTISLA  VER  V  CONVENTION.  3 1 5 

When  Daniel  Dangerfield,  a  fugitive  slave,  was  tried  in  Philadelphia,  Mrs. 
Mott's  son-in-law,  a  lawyer,  defended  him.  The  trial  was  a  long  one,  lastinp- 
all  day  and  all  night  until  the  dawning  of  the  morning,  when  the  Court  ad- 
journed only  for  a  few  hours'  recess,  resuming  at  ten  o'clock  and  continuing 
throughout  the  second  day.  During  all  this  trial  Lucretia  Mott  sat  by  the  side 
of  the  prisoner.  When  the  trial  was  ended  Dangerfield  was  set  at  liberty,  and 
Mrs.  Mott  walked  out  of  the  court-room  and  through  the  mob  which  threatened 
to  lynch  him,  her  hand  on  the  colored  man's  arm.  and  that  little  hand  was  a 
sure  protector,  for  no  one  dared  to  touch  him.  Afterward  the  attorney  for  the 
Southern  master  approached  Mrs.  Mott's  son-in-law,  the  advocate  on  the  other 
side,  and  said:  "I  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  your  mother-in  law,  but  I  never 
saw  her  before  this  trial.      She  is  an  ano-el." 

o 

In  the  forming  of  the  National  Anti-slavery  Society  in  1833,  Mrs.  Mott  was 
with  Garrison  and  Whittier  and  other  noted  Abolitionists  on  the  floor  of  the 
Convention,  and  offered  many  suggestions  in  forming  the  written  principles  of 
the  organization,  "all  of  which,"  says  Mr.  Wilson,  a  member  of  the  Conven- 
tion, "were  made  with  such  clearness  and  precision  that  they  were  readily 
assented  to." 

In  1840  the  World's  Antislavery  Convention  was  held  in  London.  Mrs. 
Mott  and  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  were  delegates,  appointed  to  represent  the 
Abolitionists  of  the  United  States.  They  were  not  admitted  to  places  in  the 
Convention  because  they  were  women.  The  dignity  of  man  had  not  yet  con- 
descended so  far  as  to  admit  woman  to  sit,  even  in  the  cause  of  humanity,  in 
his  council-chamber.  They  were,  however,  voted  seats  of  honor  in  the  hall, 
where  they  could  hear,  and,  by  button-holing  the  lords  of  creation,  counsel  such 
things  as  they  might.  They  were  treated  with  the  utmost  consideration  by  the 
e/i'U  of  London.  They  were  feted  and  dined,  as  if  by  these  courtesies  it  was 
sought  to  heal  whatever  affront  they  might  have  felt  at  being  denied  their  right- 
ful places  on  the  floor  of  the  Convention. 

But  the  thorn  had  not  only  pierced  the  womanly  hearts  of  Mrs.  Mott  and 
Mrs.  Stanton  ;  it  had  sunk  into  their  keen  intellects  and  set  them  thinking. 
The  Quakers  had  permitted  Mrs.  Mott  to  preach.  She  was  the  most  popular 
preacher  in  their  denomination,  perhaps,  at  her  time.  People  of  all  denomina- 
tions, who  despised  the  sect-  to  which  she  adhered,  came  many  miles  and 
thronged  the  audience  halls  to  hear  the  great  Quaker  preacher.  Why  should 
not  woman  be  permitted  to  lift  her  voice  and  vote  in  the  convention  hall  where 
delegates  assembled  in  the  cause  of  humanity?  Yes,  why  should  not  woman, 
with  an  intellect,  if  not  always  equal  in  strength,  at  least  universally  regarded 
as  more  subtle  and  possessed  of  a  keener  intuition,  be  permitted  to  take  her 
place  by  the  side  of  man  in  the  affairs  of  the  world?  Out  of  this  incident  and 
in  this  thought  the  woman's  suffraore  movement  was  born,     Mrs,  Mott  and  Mrs, 


3i6 


SLAVERY'S  ENEMY  A NV  FREEDOM'S  FRIEND. 


Stanton  there  decided  to  call  a  convention  at  some  future  time,  m  America,  for 
the  advocacy  of  woman's  right  to  participate  in  the  political  affairs  of  the 
nation,  and  this  resolve  they  carried  out. 

The  first  Woman's  Rights  Convention  was  called  in  Seneca  Falls,  New 
York,  in  July,  1848.  James  Molt,  the  husband  of  Lucretia,  presided,  and  thus 
the  woman's  suffrage  movement  was  begun.  To  this  cause  and  to  the  cause  of 
temperance  and  work  of  reform  generally  the  remaining  years  of  Mrs.  Mott's 
life  were  devoted. 


THE  HOME  OF  LUCRETIA  MOTT,  NEAR  PHILADELPHIA. 
(A  station  on  the  underground  railroad  for  fugitive  slaves.) 

It  is  a  happy  thought  that  Lucretia  Mott,  like  Garrison,  Wendell  Phillips 
and  John  G.  Whittier,  lived  to  see  the  triumph  of  the  cause  of  emancipation,  to 
which  they  devoted  their  lives,  and  to  witness  also  a  complete  reversion  of 
popular  feeling  toward  herself  as  an  Abolitionist  that  brought  with  it  a  general 
recognition  of  her  claim  to  admiration  and  esteem.  Her  latter  days  were  days 
of  peace. 

Her  old  age  had  that  accompaniment  which  is  so  beautiful — "honor,  love, 
confidence,  troops  of  friends." 

We  might  have  told  many  incidents  of  her  visit  abroad  in  the  memorable 
year  of  1840,  when  she  preached  in  the  largest  halls  and  churches  of  England, 


A  BRIGHT,  CHEER  V  HO  USEHOLD.  3 1 7 

and  of  her  experiences  in  antislavery  meetings  and  lectures,  even  in  slavery- 
States,  where  Southern  chivalry  made  rt  less  dangerous  than  in  many  Northern 
localities;  of  how  even  a  Quaker  physician  refused  to  prescribe  for  her  on 
one  occasion  because  she  was  not  what  he  called  "orthodox  in  the  true 
faith,"  etc.  But  to  those  who  would  study  her  life  in  its  details  we  take  plea- 
sure in  recommending  the  book  written  by  her  granddaughter,  Mrs.  Anna 
Hallowell,  published  in  1884. 

Mrs.  Mott  was  a  great  reader,  a  great  thinker  and  a  great  preacher,  but  a 
poor  writer.  In  fact,  she  has  written  nothing  worthy  of  being  called  literature. 
"Her  proper  study,"  says  her  biographer,  "was  mankind,  seen  face  to  face." 

Physically,  Lucretia  Mott  was  a  woman  of  very  small  stature,  for  she  never 
weighed  ninety  pounds,  and  her  weight  was  often  less  than  that  the  last  years 
of  her  life.  But  this  little  woman,  like  the  "Little  Corporal,"  was  a  host  within 
herself.  Her  head  was  a  model  in  its  well-balanced  proportions  and  of  large 
size. 

Perhaps  her  greatness  was  also  largely  due  to  her  husband.  Elizabeth 
Oakes  Smith,  the  poetess  and  lecturer,  says  :  "  From  their  marriage,  in  181 1,  to 
the  death  of  James  Mott,  in  1868,  nothing  ever  came  between  the  hearts  of 
these  two.  Of  them  it  might  fitly  be  said :  '  They  were  they  whom  God  had 
joined  together  for  a  noble  purpose.'"  Continuing,  Mrs.  Smith  says:  "  I  vis- 
ited their  home  in  Philadelphia  in  1855.  It  was  a  beautiful  household,  composed 
of  the  sons  and  daughters  and  their  wives  and  their  husbands.  They  had  lived 
thus  as  one  family  for  eight  years,  and  Lucretia  remarked  to  me :  *  The  first 
disagreeable  word  has  not  been  spoken.'  It  was  a  bright,  cheery  household, 
quite  gay  for  Friends,  with  tasteful,  elegant  dressing  and  pleasant  music.  I 
was  more  than  once  in  the  family  receptions,  where  Lucretia,  knitting  work  in 
hand,  moved  about  with  an  apt  remark  here  and  a  word  and  a  smile  there, 
eliciting  the  best  abilities  of  her  guests  and  putting  all  upon  an  easy  footing. 
She  took  me  several  times  to  ride  with  her,  and  charmed  me  by  her  elevated 
poetic  cast  of  mind  and  conversation.  She  was  alive  to  all  the  beauty  of  scen- 
ery, and  often  ready  with  some  sweet  poetic  extract  garnered  away  in  her 
retentive  memory." 

It  was  in  this  home  that  Lucretia  Mott  died  on  November  i  ith,  1880.  The 
old  house  near  Philadelphia  is  sdll  pointed  out  as  a  landmark  to  sightseers  who 
visit  this  city. 


THE   HEROIC  HOTHER   OF  JAHES  A.  GARFIELD, 


ELIZA    BALLOU 


**  The  history  of  a  brave,  domestic  mother  will  be  written  in  the  lives  of  her  children,  if  nowhere 
else." — Sheppard. 

When  Lincoln  was  splitting  rails 
idiana  and  Illinois,  the  woods  of 
Ohio  rang  with  the  echoes  of  another 
axe  and  mall.    The  blows  were  not  so 
resonant  of  strength  and  the  staccatos 
of    the    strokes    were    not   so 
pointed  and   exact   as    those 
which  sounded  in  the  forests 
of  Illinois,  for  they  were  ad- 
ministered by  weaker  hands. 
They  were    the   hands  of  a 
woman,  and  that  woman  was 
the  mother  of  James  A.  Gar- 
field. 

Yes,  the  mother  of  the 
future  President,  while  he 
toddled  in  helpless  infancy 
around  the  lowly  log  cabin, 
split  the  rails  to  fence  his 
father's  grave,  which  lay  un- 
protected in  the  wheat  field 
he  had  cleared  the  year  be- 
fore. 

Amid  all  the  stones  of 
heroism  with  which  history 
has  adorned  the  pages  of  time,  we  might  look  in  vain  for  a  braver,  truer  heroine 
than  Eliza,  this  young  widow,  who  battled  with  the  wilderness  and  conquered. 
It  is  little  wonder  that  the  sons  of  such  women  become  rulers  and  heroes. 
They  are  born  with  the  kingly  principle  which  quails  before  no  difficulty  and 
acknowledges  no  defeat. 

Abram  Garfield,  the  father  of  the  President,  was  a  man  of  noble  principles 
and  great  strength  of  character,     Under  fairer  circumstances  he  might  have 

318 


THE  BOY  JAMES  GARFIELD  BRINGING  HIS    FIRST  DAY'S 
EARNINGS  TO  HIS  MOTHER. 


ALONE  WITH  HER  FOUR  FATHERLESS  CHHDREN.  319 

made  a  notable  career,  but  the  hardships  of  his  frontier  life  and  the  care  of  his 
little  family  drove  all  thought  of  personal  advancement  from  his  mind.  He 
worked  day  and  night  to  make  them  a  home  in  the  wilderness.  Both  father 
and  mother  came  from  the  East.  They  had  known  each  other  from  childhood, 
and  they  removed  from  New  York  to  Ohio  in  the  frontier  days  of  that  State. 

The  little  home  they  occupied  was  a  log  cabin,  eighteen  by  twenty  feet, 
containing  but  one  room,  in  which  the  faniily  must  eat,  sleep,  cook,  spin,  weave, 
and  receive  their  company.  All  the  furniture  in  it,  as  the  house  had  been,  was 
manufactured  by  the  husband,  and  the  young  wife  was  proud  of  it,  as  she  was 
of  him,  and  he  was  too  truly  noble  to  think  of  anything  aside  from  the  happi- 
ness of  that  young  wife  who  had  come  to  cheer  his  pioneer  home. 

They  were  young,  honest,  and  contented.  The  future  was  before  them, 
good  health  blessed  them ;  they  were  the  world  to  each  other,  and  together  they 
hoped  to  make  "the  wilderness  to  blossom  as  the  rose."  At  morning  the  hus- 
band went  away  with  his  axe  on  his  shoulder  or  followed  his  plough,  whistling 
and  singing  from  his  happy  heart. 

Children  came  in  this  humble  cottage,  and  at  night  the  scenes  described  by 
Burns  in  "Cotter's  Saturday  Night,"  save  for  the  grown-up  children  in  the 
Scottish  picture,  might  have  found  its  counterpart  in  this  happy,  humble  home 
in  Ohio. 

One  day  Mr.  Garfield  came  home  from  his  labor,  ill,  and  in  a  few  days  he 
died,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-three. 

It  was  a  sad  funeral.  The  scattered  neighbors  for  many  miles  around 
gathered  in,  and  they  m  ide  a  rude  plank  coffin,  in  which  they  put  the  body  of 
the  husband  (and  the  hei.\rt  of  his  widow).  They  bore  him  to  the  new  wheat 
field  near  the  house,  which  as  yet  remained  unfenced,  and  laid  him  down  to  his 
last  sleep. 

Picture  this  young  mother,  with  her  four  fatherless  children,  in  that  cabin 
in  the  wilderness,  if  you  can,  when  the  last  kind  neighbor  had  gone  that  night, 
and  with  the  darkness  came  the  sense  of  her  loss  and  responsibility.  The  farm 
was  encumbered  by  debt ;  there  was  no  money  to  provide  the  barest  necessities 
of  life.  "  Sell  your  litde  farm,  pay  the  debts,  take  the  balance  of  the  money  to 
carry  you  and  your  children  back  to  your  people  in  the  East,"  counselled  a 
neighbor.  "  Go  away  and  leave  my  husband's  body  in  the  wheat  field  here? 
Never !  I  can't  do  that."  Her  spirit  revived,  all  her  energy  was  aroused,  and 
her  resolution  was  formed  from  that  hour.  She  would  stay  by  the  sacred  spot, 
and  her  children  should  grow  up  in  sight  of  his  grave. 

Her  oldest  son,  then  ten  years  of  age,  said :  "  I  can  plant  and  plough, 
mother ;  I  can  cut  wood  and  milk  cows.  I  want  to  stay  here,  and  I'll  work 
real  hard  to  help  you."  He  kept  his  word.  He  was  her  counsellor  and  her 
assistant,  and  together  they  made  the  living  and  inspired  the  other  members  of 


320  THE  HEROIC  MOTHER  OF  JAMES  A.  GARFIELD. 

the  household  as  they  grew  up  with  their  noble  example.  With  her  own  hands 
Eliza  Garfield  split  the  rails  and  fenced  the  new  wheat  field  in  which  her  hus- 
band slept,  and  the  plowing  and  the  planting  she  and  her  son  carried  on  with 
zeal  and  energy. 

But  before  the  harvest  came  her  scanty  supply  of  food  was  fast  failing, 
and  there  was  no  money  to  buy  more.  She  determined  to  avoid  adding  to  her 
present  debt,  and,  without  letting  the  children  know  it,  she  put  them  on  a  daily 
allowance,  and  when  she  found  the  provisions  would  not  last  until  harvest  time 
for  them  all,  she  denied  herself  a  portion,  by  living  first  upon  two  and  then 
upon  one  meal  a  day.  All  this  time  she  worked  in  the  field,  taxing  her  strength 
to  the  utmost  to  save  her  children  from  want.  The  deep  lines  that  this  starva- 
tion, care  and  anxiety  wrought  upon  her  face  in  the  early  days  of  her  widow- 
hood were  never  effaced.     They  were  honorable  scars,  won  in  a  noble  warfare. 

At  last  the  harvest  came,  and  the  grateful  mother  rejoiced,  for  it  was  an 
abundant  crowning  of  her  labors.  Fresh  vegetables  were  plentiful,  and  her 
small  garners  were  filled  with  grain.  The  dangers  were  past  and  the  household 
was  saved.  Her  eldest  son  was  now  a  boy  of  eleven  years  of  age,  and  his  two 
sisters  were  next  him  in  age.  James,  the  youngest,  was  three  years  old,  and 
was  the  idol  of  his  brothers  and  sisters.  The  character  of  this  eldest  brother 
was  noble  and  unselfish.  As  a  child  he  took  upon  himself  the  cares  of  a  man, 
and  he  never  laid  them  down  until  his  mother  was  above  want.  He  hired  him- 
self out  to  do  farm  work  for  a  neighbor  at  $i  2  a  month,  and  with  his  first  week's 
wages  he  bought  his  little  brother  the  first  pair  of  shoes  which  the  child,  then 
four  years  of  age,  ever  had.  He  likewise  paid  a  part  of  the  cost  of  James's 
schooling.  The  eldest  sister,  to  enable  this  pet  brother  to  go  so  far  to  school, 
carried  him  on  her  back,  and  the  wise  mother  worked  for  all  and  provided  for 
them  as  comfortably  as  she  could. 

Had  the  father  lived  his  children  would,  no  doubt,  have  had  a  less  toilsome 
and  perhaps  a  happier  childhood,  but  they  would  not  have  been  more  wisely 
instructed  than  they  were. 

Mrs.  Garfield  was,  li-ke  Mary  Washington  and  the  mothers  of  Lincoln  and 
Stonewall  Jackson,  intensely  religious.  Her  ancestors  were  Huguenots.  One 
of  them,  Maturin  Ballou,  was  a  preacher  in  Rhode  Island  in  Colonial  times. 
He  built  the  old  church  which  still  stands  in  the  town  of  Cumberland,  R.  I.,  and 
is  known  as  "  Elder  Ballou's  Meeting  House."  The  sons  of  many  generations 
which  succeeded  him  before  we  come  to  Eliza  Ballou,  the  mother  of  Garfield, 
were  preachers.  One  of  them,  Hosea  Ballou,  was  the  founder  of  Universalism 
in  the  United  States.  Hence,  we  see  that  Mrs.  Garfield  belonged  to  a  family 
noted  for  executive  ability,  perseverance,  ambition,  fortitude,  and  unyielding 
courage.  Therefore  it  is  not  strange  that  she  was  able  to  face  such  adversity  as 
met  her  in  the  prime  of  her  womanhood,  and  that  she  overcame  it  in  the  end, 


THE  AGED  MOTHER  OF  PRESIDENT  GARFIELD. 


BRAVE  STRUGGLE  FOR  BREAD.  321 

Mrs.  Garfield  was  a  devout  member  of  the  Society  of  Disciples,  and  she 
instructed  her  children  systematically  in  Bible  study.  The  Sabbath  day  she 
kept  holy,  and  she  invariably  read  the  Bible  and  explained  to  her  youthful  audi- 
ence what  was  not  apprehended  by  them.  Her  Bible  teaching  took  the  place 
of  church  service,  for  there  was  no  church  near  enough  for  them  to  attend.  On 
week-'days  she  read  four  chapters  regularly,  and  the  family  circle  discussed  the 
histories  of  Moses,  Isaiah,  and  Paul  as  they  sat  at  meals  or  gathered  about  the 
evening  fire. 
I  She  was  a  pioneer  reformer,  and   her  children  were   zealously  taught  tem- 

perance, love  of  liberty,  and  loyalty  to  their  Government. 

It  was  the  widow  Garfield  who  from  her  scanty  acres  gave  the  land  to  build 
a  school-house,  in  order  that  her  children  and  those  of  her  neighbors  might  have 
the  benefit  of  schooling  all  the  year  round.  She  it  was  who  proposed  the  erec- 
tion of  the  school-house,  and  who  urged  and  encouraged  the  idea  until  it  was 
successfully  carried  out.  Her  brother-in-law  was  a  member  of  the  Church  of 
the  Disciples,  and  he  organized  a  congregation  in  the  school-house,  where  the 
merits  of  the  Disciples  as  a  sect  were  discussed,  and  where  the  controverted 
religious  questions  of  the  day  were  carefully  considered. 

Her  eldest  son  left  her  to  accept  work  in  the  clearings  of  Michigan,  and 
James,  the  future  President,  took  his  place  on  the  farm.  In  addition  to  his  daily 
work  he  learned  the  carpenter's  trade  sufficiently  to  earn  a  dollar  a  day  while 
yet  a  boy.  The  first  day's  pay  he  took  home  to  his  mother  and  poured  out  the 
pennies  into  her  lap.  He  was  barefooted,  and  clad  in  jean  trousers  of  her 
manufacture,  but  in  his  heart  he  was  the  happiest  of  boys,  and  his  mother  felt 
that  she  was  the  mother  of  a  "Great  Heart."  The  eldest  son  had  set  this 
example  to  the  younger  brother,  for  his  six  months'  earning  for  cutting  wood  in 
the  wilderness  he  took  to  his  mother  and  gave  her  to  build  a  house.  Not  a 
thought  of  themselves  had  these  boys  ;  only  for  their  mother  they  toiled,  and  the 
children  were  fathers  to  the  men,  for  in  all  the  years  of  their  lives  they  consid- 
ered her  first,  themselves  last.  They  loved  her  because  she  was  worthy  of  their 
love,  and  they  made  sacrifices  for  her  sake  because  she  had  made  them  freely 
for  their  sakes.  They  worked  away  from  home,  and  as  the  years  passed  on 
they  both  went  from  home  to  live,  but  "mother"  was  the  loadstar  in  all  times 
and  places.  She  lived  to  see  her  two  daughters  setded  in  life,  her  eldest  son  a 
highly  respected  citizen,  and  her  youngest  son  to  pass  from  college  to  the 
church,  to  the  halls  of  legislation,  and  to  the  army.  He  was  spared  to  return 
to  her  after  the  war,  and  was  sent  to  Congress.  When  he  was  nominated  for 
the  Presidency  in  1880,  at  the  Chicago  Republican  Convention,  Mrs.  Garfield 
came  into  greater  prominence,  and  her  brave  life  was  a  familiar  story  in  all 
parts  of  the  country. 

At  his  inauguration   in  Washington  on  the  4th  of  March,  1 88 1 ,  which  at- 


32  2  THE  HEROIC  MOTHER  OF  JAMES  A.  GARFIELD. 

tracted  thousands  of  people  to  the  Capital,  Mrs.  Garfield  was  a  participator. 
She  rode  with  her  daughter-in-law  to  the  Capitol,  and  sat  during  the  ceremonies 
of  the  inauguration  beside  Mrs.  Garfield.  When  the  oath  of  office  had  been 
administered,  and  President  Garfield  had  reverently  kissed  the  Bible  and  sealed 
his  compact  with  the  nation  to  rightly  administer  its  laws  for  the  term  for  which 
he  was  chosen,  when  thousands  of  eyes  rested  upon  him  to  see  the  next  ^ct  in 
the  drama  being  enacted,  in  the  presence  of  the  foreign  dignitaries  and  leading 
men  of  the  country,  he  turned  to  his  aged  mother,  who  had  been  unconsciously 
weeping  during  the  delivery  of  his  address,  and  kissed  her ;  then  he  kissed  his 
wife — the  two  persons  of  all  the  world  most  interested  with  him  in  the  events 
they  had  witnessed.  The  act,  the  most  unexpected  at  that  moment,  called  forth 
cheers  from  the  multitude  who  witnessed  it,  and  the  one  incident  of  the  inau- 
guration the  most  impressed  upon  all  who  saw  it  was  the  tribute  paid  his  mother 
and  wife  by  the  President.  Wherever  the  soldiers  wandered  in  Washington 
during  that  day,  wherever  the  news  was  flashed  over  the  wires  to  the  distant 
sections  of  our  own  country  or  to  foreign  lands,  was  heard  this  sentence  :  "The 
President  kissed  his  mother." 

Widow  Garfield  was  welcomed  to  the  White  House  by  the  nation.  The 
first  mother  of  a  President  who  had  ever  occupied  the  Presidential  Mansion 
with  her  son,  she  was  looked  upon  as  the  only  guest  of  the  kind  the  country 
had  ever  known,  and  she  was  the  most  popular  woman  in  the  land  immediately. 
All  the  incidents  of  her  widowed  life  in  Ohio  were  told  and  retold  in  the  news- 
papers, and  "Mother  Garfield"  was  of  more  interest,  if  not  more  importance, 
than  her  son. 

The  world  knows  true  merit  when  it  Is  before  It,  and  it  delights  to  recog- 
nize it.  Not  a  dissenting  voice  objected  to  the  plaudits  uttered  in  praise  of  the 
noble  woman  who  had  become  a  representative  mother,  to  sit  in  the  house  of 
the  Presidents  and  share  the  honors  of  high  place  with  her  children.  The  press 
of  the  country  hardly  had  done  with  their  reiterated  praise  of  her  when  one 
morning  in  July,  as  she  sat  at  the  house  of  her  daughter  in  Ohio,  whither  she 
had  gone  to  spend  the  summer,  word  was  brought  her  that  her  son  was  shot. 

When  she  realized  the  import  of  what  her  daughter  was  trying  to  tell  her, 
in  the  gentlest  manner  possible,  she  exclaimed  suddenly,  "The  Lord  help  me  1" 
Then  as  the  telegrams  were  read  her,  and  she  knew  all,  her  only  remark  was, 
"  How  could  anybody  be  so  cold-hearted  as  to  want  to  kill  my  baby?"  Then, 
rallying  forces  which  had  been  almost  broken,  she  uttered  the  calmer  words  of 
trust,  "  God  will  help  me  through," 

The  man  at  the  head  of  the  nation  was  still  his  mother's  baby,  the  youngest 
of  her  children,  and  she  was  growing  old.  Without  the  slightest  traces  of 
excitement  in  her  manner  she  waited  for  the  news  that  was  sent  to  her  con- 
stantly of  the  President's  condition,  and  when  there  was  no  strength  left  to  meet 


SYMPATHY  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 


323 


the    news    expected    she    would 
remain  secluded  until  the  control 
by  quiet  prayer.     Wherever  the 
bulletins,  or  hear  the 
news,  there 


sympathy 

chivalric 

her,       and 

manifested 

moment  he 

to  the  people  as  it 

ever  there  were  hu- 

sympathy    there    it 

pressed,  and  the 

the  people  was 

person.     It 


y^ 


f^-^^Y/-^' 


retire  to  her  own  room  and 
she  required  had  been  gained 
people  gathered  to  read  the 
purport  of  the  Washington 
were  heard  words  of  tender 
for  the  aged  mother.  The 
devotion  her  son  had  paid  to 
the  anxious  care  he  had 
on  her  account  from  the 
was  shot,  endeared  her 
had  himself.  Where- 
man  beings  to  express 
was  ex- 
sorrow  of 
as  one 
touched 


WHEN  GARFIELD  TOOK  THE  OATH  OF  ALLE- 
GIANCE AS  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES  HE  TURNED  AND  KISSED  HIS  AGED 
MOTHER. 


the  heart  of  the  aged  woman,  and  helped 
her  to  wait  through  the  weary  weeks  of 
illness  for  the  end  that  was  inevitable. 
And  when  the  President  died,  with 
mingled  sorrow,  pathos,  and  hope  the 
aged  woman  cried,  "To-morrow  I  shall 
be  eighty  years  old,  but  I  shall  not  see 
the  beginning  of  another  year.  James 
has  gone,  and  I  shall  not  be  long  after 


3^4  "J^HE  HEROIC  MOTHER  OF  JAMES  A.  GARFIELD. 

him."  But  the  paroxysms  were  soon  conquered,  and  she  manifested  again  the 
heroic  courage  which  marked  her  whole  Hfe. 

She  went  to  Cleveland  to  meet  the  funeral  cortege,  and  was  there  joined 
by  her  eldest  son,  who,  as  in  the  days  of  his  youth,  threw  the  loving  arm  of 
protection  around  her  to  soothe  her.  It  is  remarkable  that  she  did  not  sink 
under  the  strain  put  upon  her.  The  death  of  her  son  under  any  circumstances 
would  have  deeply  affected  her,  and  the  added  excitement  and  sorrow  of  the 
people  were  enough  to  prostrate  her.  There  were  in  Cleveland  the  day  she 
reached  there  thousands  of  people  who  had  gone  from  all  parts  of  the  country 
to  attend  the  funeral.  The  sympathy  of  the  public  and  the  presence  of  so  many 
mourners  were  enough  to  weaken  her  to  prostration.  But  she  quietly  assured 
those  about  her  of  her  intention  to  follow  her  son's  remains  to  the  grave,  and 
as  she  walked  beside  the  grief-stricken  widow  she  seemed  as  firm  as  she.  The 
funeral  ceremonies  were  the  most  imposing  ever  witnessed  in  this  country,  and 
the  old  mother  noted  the  mourning  emblems  everywhere  present  as  she  rode 
along  the  streets  to  the  park  where  the  obsequies  were  held.  Mrs.  Garfield 
had  not  seen  the  President  since  she  left  Washinofton,  a  few  weeks  after  the 
inauguration,  when  she  parted  with  him  in  the  height  of  health  and  happiness. 
Now  she  was  sittingr  beside  the  coffin  which  held  all  that  remained  of  him.  The 
thought  was  too  much  to  bear  composedly,  and,  impelled  by  the  irrepressible 
yearning  of  her  mother's  heart,  she  arose  and  walked  to  the  head  of  the  casket, 
where  she  covered  her  face  in  her  hands  and  stood  bowed  in  grief.  The  thou- 
sands who  observed  her  wept  from  sympathy  with  her. 

At  length  a  grand  tomb  was  erected  in  Cleveland  to  the  memory  of  the 
second  martyr  President — the  most  imposing  and  most  expensive  in  the  coun- 
try, with  the  exception  of  that  of  General  Grant  in  New  York — and  his  remains 
were  removed  thither,  places  being  left  beside  his  sarcophagus  for  those  of  his 
wife  and  mother  when  Providence  should  call  them  to  join  him  on  the  other 
shore. 

To  the  surprise  of  Grandmother  Garfield's  friends  and  herself,  she  was  not 
so  soon  to  follow  her  gifted  and  honored  son  as  she  had  anticipated. 

The  sudden  shock  of  grief  once  passed,  she  lived  for  six  years  in  patience 
and  cheerfulness  with  her  daughter-in-law,  the  President's  wife,  at  Mentor,  Ohio, 
to  whom  the  writer  is  indebted  for  the  following  information  concerning  the  last 
years  of  her  life  and  the  memoranda  concerning  her  death  and  funeral  services. 

"Grandmother  Garfield"  was  the  title  by  which  she  was  everywhere  hon- 
ored. She  was  not  melancholy,  and  she  often  spoke  of  her  gratitude  for  so  many 
comforts  and  the  kindness  which  every  one  bestowed  upon  her.  She  enjoyed 
company  and  the  pleasantries  of  conversation,  yet  through  it  all  she  wore  an 
air  of  peaceful  resignation  which  seemed  to  say,  "  I  am  only  waiting  for  God's 
good  time  to  cross  the  silent  river." 


THE  LAST  YEARS  OF  HER  LIFE,  AND  DEATH.  325 

She  was  a  devout  Christian  and  a  constant  reader  of  her  Bible  and  religious 
literature.  When  her  son  James,  the  future  President,  went  to  Hiram  College, 
she  said  to  him  :  "Whenever  the  sun  is  setting  read  in  the  Bible,  for  I  will  read 
with  you  then."  It  was  thus  she  believed  the  mystic  cord  bound  heart  to  heart 
each  evening  hour,  and  as  her  son  thus  read  the  Sacred  Word  she  and  he  be- 
lieved the  purest  love  and  the  divinest  truth  kissed  each  other. 

It  is  said  that  Grandmother  Garfield  often  felt  that  the  spirit  of  her  son 
communed  with  hers.  She  did  not  speak  of  him  as  dead,  but  "  gone  before." 
She  believed  literally  in  the  words  of  Christ,  "W^hosoever  liveth  and  believeth 
in  me  shall  never  die."  Garfield  while  he  lived  believed,  with  his  mother,  that 
the  mortal  and  immortal  spheres  of  existence  were  very  close  too-ether.  In 
his  own  words,  "  There  are  times  in  the  history  of  men  when  they  stand  so 
near  the  veil  that  separates  mortals  from  immortals,  time  from  eternity,  and 
men  from  their  God,  that  they  can  almost  hear  their  breathings  and  feel  the 
pulsations  of  the  heart  of  the  Infinite." 

On  the  morning  of  January  21st,  1888,  the  veil  which  this  grand  old  woman 
in  her  eighty-seventh  year  had  been  so  long  standing  near,  listening  to  the 
breathings  of  loved  ones  within,  was  gently  parted  and  she  was  bidden  to  enter. 
Who  could  grieve  at  her  going  ? 

"  Life's  work  well  done, 
•    ,  Life's  race  well  run, 

Life's  crown  well  won, 
Now  comes  rest." 

The  funeral  services  were  held  at  the  Garfield  home  in  Mentor,  Monday, 
January  23d,  in  the  presence  of  a  large  and  reverent  company.  The  choir 
sang  a  beautiful  hymn,  "It  is  not  death  to  die."  The  23d  Psalm,  beginning 
"The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd,"  with  other  selections,  closing  with  "O  Death, 
where  is  thy  sting?  O  Grave,  where  is  thy  victory?"  were  read  by  her  pastor. 
Rev.  H.  R.  Cooley.  Rev.  Mr.  Cooley  and  Prof.  B.  A.  Hinsdale  also  delivered 
appropriate  addresses.  After  the  choir  sang  "Rock  of  Ages,"  those  present 
marched  in  single  file  by  the  bier  and  took  a  last  look  at  the  calm  face  of  the 
saintly  sleeper  nestled  in  the  soft  folds  of  her  snowy  hair. 

The  casket  was  then  closed  forever.  A  large  concourse  followed  the 
hearse  to  the  railway  station,  where  the  sacred  freight  was  embarked  for  Cleve- 
land. At  Euclid  Avenue  Station  the  funeral  party  was  met  by  a  funeral  car 
and  the  remains  were  taken  to  the  Lake  View  Cemetery.  The  snow  was 
falling  fast  and  darkness  was  settling  over  the  silent  city  of  the  dead  when  the 
car  stopped  in  front  of  the  general  receiving  vault.  The  casket  was  lifted 
from  the  car  and  the  remains  of  Eliza  Ballou  Garfield  were  placed  beside  those 
of  her  beloved  son  James. 

What   a    beautiful    closing   of  a  long  and  noble  life,  which  in  every  :ict 


326  I'HE  HEROIC  MOTHER  OF  JAMES  A.  GARFIELD, 

speaks  to  us  of  a  sublime  courage  born  of  devotion  to  duty,  and  strengthened 
by  a  faith  and  hope  that  knew  no  wavering  !  From  physical  bravery  to  the 
courage  of  moral  and  religious  conviction  there  was  no  faltering  in  Eliza 
Ballou.  From  the  blush  of  life's  morning  in  1801,  amid  the  hills  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, to  its  twilight  shades  at  the  setting  of  the  sun,  in  1888,  on  the  far-away 
southern  shores  of  Lake  Erie's  rolling  waves — ever  the  same,  morning,  noon, 
and  evening — the  model  daughter,  wife,  and  mother  passed  to  her  reward, 
full  of  honors  and  with  no  cloud  to  dim  the  golden  glow  of  life's  evening  sky. 

"  Beautiful  twilight  at  set  of  sun, 
Beautiful  goal  with  race  well  run, 
Beautiful  rest  with  work  well  done. 
Beautiful  grave  where  grasses  creep. 
Where  brown  leaves  fall,  where  drifts  lie  deep 
Over  worn-out  hands — Oh,  beautiful  sleep !  ' 


TEACHER— HOSPITAL  NURSE-  AUTHOR. 


LOUISA    MAY    ALCOTT. 


While  Miss  Alcott  always 
considered  New  Endand  her 

o 

home,  she  was  actually  born 
in  Germantown,  Philadelphia, 
November  29th,  1832.  Her 
father,  Amos  Bronson  Alcott, 
after  his  marriage  in  New  Eng- 
land, accepted  a  position  as 
principal  of  a  Germantown 
academy,  which  he  occupied 
from  1 83 1  to  1834,  and  after- 
ward taught  a  children's  school 
at  his  own  residence,  but  he 
was  unsuccessful,  and  he  re- 
turned to  Boston  in  1835,  when 
Louisa  was  two  years  old. 

From  this  time  forward 
Mr.  Alcott  was  a  close  friend 
and  associate  of  the  poet  and 
philosopher,  Emerson,  sharing 
with  him  his  transcendental 
doctrines,  and  joining  in  the 
Brook  Farm  experiment  of 
ideal  communism,  at  Roxbury,  Mass.  The  Brook  Farm  experiment  brought 
Mr.  Alcott  to  utter  financial  ruin,  and,  after  its  failure,  he  removed  to  Concord, 
where  he  continued  to  live  until  his  death.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Louisa, 
although  a  mere  child,  formed  a  noble  and  unselfish  purpose  to  retrieve  the 
family  fortune.  When  only  fifteen  years  of  age  she  turned  her  thoughts  to 
teaching,  her  first  school  being  in  a  barn  and  attended  by  the  children  of  Mr. 
Emerson  and  other  neighbors.  Almost  at  the  same  time  she  began  to  com- 
pose fairy  stories,  which  were  contributed  to  papers;  but  these  early  pro- 
ductions brought  her  little,  if  any,  compensation,  and  she  continued  to  devote 
herself  to  teaching,  receiving  her  own  education  privately  from  her  father. 
"When  I  was  twenty-one  years  of  age,"  she  wrote  many  years  later  to  a  friend, 
20S&D  327 


LOUISA'S  SCHOOL  IN  THE  BARN. 


328  TEACHER— HOSPITAL  NURSE— AUTHOR. 

"  I  took  my  little  earningrs  ($20)  and  a  few  clothes  and  went  out  to  seek  my 
fortune,  though  I  might  have  sat  still  and  been  supported  by  rich  friends.  All 
those  hard  years  were  teaching  me  what  I  afterward  put  in  books,  and  so  I  made 
my  fortune  out  of  my  seeming  misfortune." 

Two  years  after  this  brave  start.  Miss  Alcott's  earliest  book,  "  Fairy 
Tales,"  was  published  (1855).  About  the  same  time  her  work  began  to  be 
accepted  by  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  and  other  magazines  of  reputation.  Dur- 
ing the  winters  of  1862  and  '63  she  volunteered  her  services  and  went  to 
Washington  and  served  as  a  nurse  in  the  Government  hospitals,  and  her  expe- 
riences here  were  embodied  in  a  series  of  graphic  letters  to  her  mother  and 
sisters.  These  letters  she  revised  and  had  printed  in  the  "Boston  Common- 
wealth" in  the  summer  of  1863.  They  were  afterward  issued  in  a  volume 
entitled  "Hospital  Sketches  and  Camp-fire  Stories."  This  was  her  second 
book,  which,  together  with  her  magazine  articles,  opened  the  way  to  a  splendid 
career  as  an  author. 

Being  naturally  fond  of  young  people,  Miss  Alcott  turned  her  "attention 
from  this  time  forward  to  writing  for  them.  Her  distinctive  books  for  the 
young  are  entitled  "Moods"  (1864);  "  Morning  Glories "  (1867);  "Little 
Women"  (1868),  which  was  her  first  decided  success;  "An  Old-fashioned 
Girl"  (1869);  "Little  Men"  (1871);  "Work"  (1873);  "Eight  Cousins" 
(1875),  and  its  sequel,  "Rose  in  Bloom"  (1877),  which  perhaps  ranks  first 
among  her  books;  "Under  the  Lilacs"  (1878);  "Jack  and  Jill"  (1880),  and 
"Lulu's  Library"  (1885).  Besides  these,  she  put  forth,  at  different  times, 
several  volumes  of  short  stories,  among  which  are  "Cupid  and  Chow-Chow," 
"Silver  Pitchers"  and  "Aunt  Joe's  Scrap-bag," 

From  childhood  Miss  Alcott  was  under  the  tutelap^e  of  the  Emersonian 
school,  and  was  not  less  than  her  father  an  admirer  of  the  "Seer  of  Concord." 
"Those  Concord  days,"  she  writes,  "were  among  the  happiest  of  my  life,  for 
we  had  the  charming  playmates  in  the  little  Emersons,  Channings  and  Haw- 
thornes,  with  their  illustrious  parents  to  enjoy  our  pranks  and  join  our 
excursions." 

In  speaking  of  Emerson,  she  also  wrote  to  a  young  woman  a  few  years 
before  her  death :  "Theodore  Parker  and  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  have  done 
much  to  help  me  see  that  one  can  shape  life  best  by  trying  to  build  up  a  strong 
and  noble  character,  through  good  books,  wise  people's  society,  and  by  taking 
an  interest  in  all  reforms  that  help  the  world,  .  .  .  believing  always  that 
a  loving  and  just  Father  cares  for  us,  sees  our  weakness,  and  is  near  to  help  if 
we  call."  Continuing,  she  asks  :  "Have  you  read  Emerson?  He  is  called  a 
Pantheist,  or  believer  in  nature,  instead  of  God.  He  was  truly  a  Christian  and 
saw  God  in  nature,  finding  strength  and  comfort  in  the  same  sweet  influence  of 
the  great  Mother  as  well  as  the  great  Father  of  all.     I,  too,  believe  this,  and 


A  BRAVE  START.  ^^g 

when  tired,  sad  or  tempted,  find  my  best  comfort  in  the  woods,  the  sky,  the 
heahng  soHtude  that  lets  my  poor,  weary  soul  find  the  rest,  the  fresh  hopes,  the 
patience  which  only  God  can  give  us." 

It  was  in  this  atmosphere  of  literature  and  transcendentalism  that  the  child 
awoke  to  the  consciousness  of  her  existence,  and  in  it  she  grew  up.  No 
wonder  that,  at  an  early  age,  she  was  fond  of  reading  Shakespeare,  Emerson, 
Margaret  Fuller,  Goethe,  George  Sand  and  other  writers  of  deep  thought. 

Thus  stimulated,  her  imagination  and  her  muse  awoke.  At  eight  years 
she  wrote  rhymes.  At  thirteen  she  wrote  the  beautiful  hymn,  ''My  Kingdom," 
which  was  so  meritorious  that  it  was  published  in  a  volume  endded  "Woman 
in  Sacred  Song." 

Louisa  had  three  younger  sisters,  and  in  their  home  at  Concord  they  lived 
a  merry  life,  notwithstanding  their  scanty  means.  Louisa  was  very  imaginative, 
and  she  improvised  vivid  stories  which  she  told  to  her  sisters  and  her  play- 
mates. These  impromptu  stories  of  her  childhood  were  afterward  written  out 
and  published  in  book  form  under  the  tide  of  "  Flower  Fables."  Occasionally 
they  got  together  benches  and  loose  boards  and  made  a  stage  in  the  barn, 
where  they  produced  real  plays,  memorized  from  books,  and  did  it  so  well  that 
the  neighbors  came  to  enjoy  their  entertainments.  These  plays  in  childhood 
had  their  serious  influence,  too,  for  in  them  little  Louisa  received  such  a  fond- 
ness for  the  stage  that  when  she  was  nineteen  years  old  she  made  her  book,  the 
"Rival  Prima  Donnas,"  into  a  drama,  and  a  manager  promised  to  put  it  on  the 
stage.  He  gave  her  a  pass  to  the  theatre  for  forty  nights.  She  became  so 
infatuated  with  the  theatre  that  she  made  arrangements  to  become  an  actress 
herself;  but,  fortunately  for  those  who  love  to  read  her  books  and  for  the  world 
that  has  been  blessed  by  her  work,  the  manager  who  had  employed  her  broke 
his  leg  and  had  to  give  up  the  business  until  the  season  was  past.  By  that 
time  Miss  Alcott's  stage  fever  had  cooled  off. 

The  mother  of  the  Alcott  girls  deserves  more  credit  than  the  world  has 
given  her.  They  owe  to  her  that  sweet,  gentle,  charitable  disposition  which  is 
the  second  charm  in  Louisa  Alcott.  She  was  a  plain,  unassuming,  tender- 
hearted little  woman,  who  never  obtruded  herself  in  public,  but  was  often  seen 
in  the  room  of  the  sick  and  in  the  humble  cottage  where  poverty  opened  the 
way  for  benevolence.  At  this  mother's  suggestion,  the  children  often  ate  only 
bread  and  milk  that  they  might  carry  their  nicely  prepared  meals  to  a  poor 
woman  with  six  small  children. 

Louisa  was  a  most  industrious  and  helpful  daughter.  As  has  been  said, 
her  father  was  a  poor  business  man,  and  what  litde  he  had  saved  was  sacrificed 
in  the  Brook  Farm  failure.  While  quite  young,  Miss  Alcott  began  to  earn 
money.  When  not  teaching,  she  hired  herself  to  care  for  an  invalid  child  or  to 
act  as  governess,  or  took  in  sewing,  and  added  to  her  slender  earning.^  by 


330  TEACHER— HOSPITAL  NURSE— AUTHOR. 

writing  late  at  night  after  the  day's  work  was  done.  When  she  wanted  inspira- 
tion, she  tells  us,  she  often  went  to  the  house  of  Rev.  Theodore  Parker,  where 
she  met  Emerson,  Sumner,  Garrison.  Julia  Ward  Howe  and  other  great 
scholars  and  thinkers.  "  How  goes  it,  my  child?"  Dr.  Parker  would  ask,  as  he 
took  her  hand  ;  and,  when  she  was  departing,  he  always  said  :  "  God  bless  you, 
Louisa;  keep  your  heart  up."  Emerson,  too,  never  failed  to  speak  words  of 
encouragement. 

After  the  publication  of  the  "Rival  Prima  Donnas"  her  stories  were 
eagerly  sought  after,  and  so  prolific  was  her  pen  that  she  often  produced  ten  in 
a  single  month,  and  received  one  dollar  per  column  for  them.  But  these  were 
nearly  all  the  ordinary  sensational  stories.  They  brought  no  lasting  fame,  and 
she  soon  tired  of  them. 

Ihe  hard-working  school-teacher  and  authoress  was  thirty  years  of  age 
when  the  great  Civil  War  broke  out  in  1861.  Her  heart  was  moved  at  the 
accounts  of  the  suffering  that  came  from  the  battle-fields  and  hospitals,  where 

"  There  was  lack  of  woman's  nursing, 
There  was  dearth  of  woman's  tears." 

She  had  waited  on  invalids.  It  was  part  of  her  profession,  and  she  determined 
to  go  to  the  front.  The  battle  of  Fredericksburg  had  just  been  fought  when 
she  arrived.  "Round  the  great  stove,"  she  says,  "was  gathered  the  dreariest 
group  I  ever  saw — ragged  and  pale,  mud  to  the  knees,  with  bloody  bandages, 
untouched  since  put  on  days  before.     *     *     ''' 

"  I  yearned  to  serve  the  dreariest  of  them  all.  Presently  there  came  an 
order,  'Tell  them  to  take  off  their  socks,  coats  and  shirts  ;  scrub  them  well,  put 
on  clean  shirts,  and  the  attendants  will  finish  them  off  and  lay  them  in  bed.' 
Think  of  it,  reader,  what  a  task  for  young  women  !  It  took  a  stout  heart,  and 
those  brave  women  who  went  to  the  front  were  true  heroines,  and  they  handled 
those  rough  and  dirty  strangers  as  tenderly  as  they  would  have  done  their  own 
fathers  and  brothers." 

One  of  the  characteristics  of  this  gentle,  sweet-faced  Boston  school-teacher 
was  her  invariable  cheerfulness.  She  believed  the  Scripture  declaration  that 
"The  rich  wine  of  a  merry  heart  doeth  good  like  a  medicine,"  and,  whenever 
there  was  a  ludicrous  point  that  could  not  give  pain  she  always  saw  it  and 
laughed  with  the  sufferers  over  it.  Like  a  ray  of  sunshine,  she  went  among  the 
soldiers,  singing  lullabies,  washing  faces  and  writing  letters  for  them.  *'  One 
day,"  she  says  in  a  letter  to  her  mother,  "a  large,  manly  fellow  was  brought  in 
badly  wounded.  As  they  dressed  his  wounds,  no  cry  or  complaint  was  uttered, 
but  I  saw  big  tears  roll  down  his  cheeks  and  drop  on  the  floor.  My  heart 
opened  wide  and  took  him  in,  as,  gathering  the  bent  head  in  my  arms,  as  freely 
as  if  he  had  been  a  child,  I  said,  *  Let  me  help  you  bear  it,  John  ! '     Never  on 


DEEDS  OF  LOVE,  SACRIFICE,  AND  HEROISM. 


33' 


any  human  countenance  have  I  seen  so  swift  and  beautiful  a  look  of  gratitude, 
surprise  and  comfort  as  that  which  answered  me  more  eloquently  than  the 
whispered — 

"  'Thank  you,  ma'am  ;   this  is  right  good  !     This  is  what  I  wanted.' 

"  '  Then  why  not  ask  for  it  before  ?  ' 

"*I  didn't  like  to  be  a  trouble  ;  you  seemed  so  busy,  and  I  could  manage 
tfn  get  on  alone.'  " 


LOUISA  M.  ALCOTT  AS  A  HOSPITAL  NURSE. 
"  I  knew  you'd  come.     I  guess  I  'm  moving  on,  ma'am." 

The  doctors  told  her  that  the  soldier  was  wounded  unto  death,  but  he  Hn 
gered  several  days,  as  Miss  Alcott  tells  us  in  her  book,  and  she  wrote  letters 
for  him  home,  while  all  the  time  he  talked  of  his  mother  and  younger  brotners 
and  children  for  whom  he  was  the  support.  She  could  not  bear  to  tell  him  he 
would  die,  but  one  day  when  she  came  in  John  stretched  out  both  his  hands  as 
he  whispered,  "I  knew  you'd  come.  I  guess  Fm  moving  on,  ma'am."  An 
hour  later  he  ^ay  dead,  holding  both  her  hands  in  his.     A  letter  came  for  the 


332  TEACHER— HOSPITAL  NURSE— AUTHOR. 

soldier  from  his  home  while  she  was  brushing  his  hair  for  the  burial.  Putting  it 
in  his  hand,  she  stooped  down  and  kissed  the  cold  brow  for  his  mother's  sake, 
A  few  minutes  later,  with  mother's  letter  in  his  hand  and  this  consecrated  kiss 
still  warm  on  his  brow,  they  bore  him  away  to  the  grave.  Such  deeds  of  love 
and  sacrifice  and  noble  heroism  are  the  crown  of  glory  upon  the  brow  of  Louisa 
May  Alcott  that  her  literary  fame  cannot  eclipse. 

We  admire  the  authoress  of  "Little  Women"  and  "Little  Men"  and 
"Aunt  Joe's  Sci^ap-bag"  for  her  beautiful  stories  of  true  life  and  her  pictures  ol 
natural  grace,  and  natural  ugliness,  too,  for  everything  is  natural  and  entertain- 
ing, as  if  her  characters  were  real  beings  doing  her  bidding  before  us.  But  it 
is  in  "  Hospital  Sketches,"  which  she  wrote  for  her  mother  and  her  sister,  and 
afterward  gave  to  the  world,  that  we  see  the  true,  sweet  and  noble  heroine  that 
we  love  for  herself  and  what  she  was. 

It  was  after  this  noble  service  to  humanity  that  Miss  Alcott  was  able  to 
make  herself  famous  as  an  authoress  and  to  earn  a  fortune  as  well.  "  Little 
Women  "  and  "Little  Men,"  "Shawl  Straps,"  "An  Old-fashioned  Girl,"  "Under 
the  Lilacs,"  where  your  heart  goes  out  and  your  tears  come  as  you  read  the 
story  of  Ben  and  his  dog,  Sancho,  all  came  after  this  hospital  service,  as  did 
also  "Jack  and  Jill"  and  several  volumes  of  those  delightful  sketch-books 
called  "  Aunt  Joe's  Scrap-bag."  These  books  have  delighted  a  world  of 
young  people,  for  they  have  been  translated  into  many  languages.  Those  who 
have  not  read  them  have  missed  a  treat.  They  also  brought  a  fortune  of  more 
than  ^loo.ooo  to  their  author,  and  enabled  her  to  bestow  upon  her  old 
mother  and  father  every  comfort  which  their  declining  years  could  wish,  and  to 
provide  for  "Little  Lulu,"  her  dead  sister  May's  child,  which  was  left  as  a  baby 
for  her  to  bring  up. 

The  mother  of  Miss  Alcott  passed  away  in  1877,  t)ut  her  distinguished 
father,  whom  she  idolized,  lingered  eleven  years  longer,  dying  at  the  age  of 
eighty-eight,  just  three  days  before  the  death  of  his  gifted  daughter.  During 
the  last  six  years  of  his  life  he  was  paralyzed,  and  "  Louisa  "  was  his  constant 
nurse.  Miss  Alcott  and  her  father  spent  their  last  years  in  the  house  in  which 
Thoreau  died  at  Concord.  It  was  known  as  the  "Orchards."  Its  walls  were 
covered  with  sketches  and  paintings  by  her  artist  sister.  May,  the  mother  of 
little  Lulu,  and  it  was,  at  the  time  of  Louisa's  death,  and  still  remains,  if  we 
mistake  not,  the  home  of  the  "Summer  School  of  Philosophy,"  in  which  father 
and  daughter  always  took  so  much  interest. 

As  already  suggested.  Miss  Alcott  survived  her  father  only  three  days, 
dying  March  6th,  1888,  at  less  than  fifty-six  years  of  age.  Her  last  years  were 
the  happiest  of  her  life.  Expressions  of  affection  came  to  her  in  almost  every 
mail  from  various  parts  of  the  world. 

"As  I  turn  my  face  toward  sunset,  I  find  so  much  to  make   the  downhill 


HER  LAST  YEARS.  333 

journey  smooth  and  lovely,  that,  like  Christian,  I  go  on  my  way  rejoicing,  with 
a  cheerful  heart." 

It  is  not  strange  that  it  should  have  been  so.  All  her  life  she  had  cast  her 
bread  upon  the  waters,  and  it  was  returning  to  her.  "They  who  would  have 
friends  must  show  themselves  friendly,"  says  an  old  adage ;  and  another, 
'' They  who  would  be  happy  must  give  others  happiness."  The  chief  aim  of 
Miss  Alcott  seems  to  have  been  to  make  others  happy.  Her  kindness  for 
young  people  grew  with  her  advancing  years.  Being  a  maiden  lady,  without 
daughters  of  her  own,  she  was  looked  up  to,  and  delighted  in  being  considered 
as  a  foster-mother  to  aspiring  girls  all  over  the  land.  How  many  times  she 
wrote  sentences  similar  to  this  :  "  Write  freely  to  me,  dear  girl,  and  if  I  can  help 
you  in  any  way,  be  sure  I  will."  This  was  written  to  one  she  had  never  seen 
and  only  four  years  before  her  death,  when  she  was  far  from  well. 

The  world  needs  women  like  Louisa  May  Alcott.  How  insignificant  are 
the  butterflies  of  fashion  as  compared  with  her ! 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT. 
(A/ier  a  Photograph  by  Notman,  Boston.) 


THE  TANNER'S   WIFE  AND   MISTRESS   OF   THE   WHITE 

HOUSE, 


^-V 


^*\ 


^. 


JULIA  DENT  GRANT. 


I  RAM  Ulysses  Grant  entered 
the  Military  Academy  at  West 
Point  in  the  year  1839.  By 
some  mistake,  they  registered 
his  name  on  the  roll  as  Ulysses 
Simpson  Grant,  and  this  name 
^^^he  bore  ever  afterwards.  The 
modest  young  soldier  gradu- 
ated in  the  year  1843  ^.nd  was 
assigned  to  duty  at  Jefferson 
Barracks,  then  a  frontier  mili- 
tary post  (the  largest  in  the 
country)  to  watch  and  keep  in 
place  the  exasperated  Indians. 
It  is  not  strange,  after  the 
routine  of  unceasing  study  for 
four  years  at  the  school,  that  the  monotonous,  idle,  and  dreary  life  at  this  frontier 
post  dragged  heavily  upon  the  nervous,  energetic  young  soldier,  and  that  he 
chafed  under  it. 

But  it  is  often  under  just  such  circumstances  that  Cupid  comes  to  pierce 
the  heart  of  the  embryo  hero  and  introduce  him  upon  the  stage  of  real  life 
an  actor  in  the  beautiful  melodrama  of  love,  where,  amid  its  changing  scenes 
of  suspense,  success  or  disappointment,  joy,  sorrow,  pathos,  the  interest  never 
ceases,  and  there  is  no  more  time  for  loneliness  or  monotony. 

Ulysses  had  a  friend  at  the  Barracks  who  had  been  his  classmate  at 
West  Point.  The  family  of  this  friend  lived  at  a  country  home  known  as  White 
Haven,  four  miles  west  of  Jefferson  Barracks.  It  was  an  old-fashioned  South- 
ern home,  attended  by  some  thirty  negro  slaves,  and  the  hospitality  exercised 
was  Southern  in  its  liberality.  It  was  natural  that  Fred  T.  Dent  invited  his 
friend  Grant  to  accompany  him  on  his  occasional  leaves  of  absence  for  a  visit 
to    "the  old  folks  at  home."      Besides   his  parents   there  were  two  bachelor 


334 


MRS.  GRANT  VISITING  GENERAL  GRANT  AT  CITY  POINT  BELOW  RICHMOND, 
NEAR  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  WAR. 


I 


GRANTS  FIRST  MEETING  WITH  MISS  DENT.  335 

brothers  and  two  little  sisters  In  short  dresses.  It  was  a  pleasant  escape  from 
the  Barracks,  and  It  was  with  bounding  hearts,  as  well  as  with  galloping  steeds, 
that  the  young  soldiers  hastened  over  the  country  roads  when  the  opportunities 
came  for  an  exchange  of  military  restrictions  and  monotony  of  the  post  for 
the  freedom  and  variety  of  this  hospitable  country  fireside,  where  the  sweets  of 
domestic  bliss  were  so  unrestrained  and  generous  that  Lieutenant  Grant  is  said 
to  have  felt  himself  scarcely  second  to  his  friend  Fred  Dent  in  the  privileges 
of  the  home.  But  one  winter's  evening,  after  he  had  been  at  the  Barracks 
some  months  and  many  times  at  the  home  of  the  genial  old  Judge  Frederick 
Dent,  a  circumstance  arose  which  made  him  feel  again  a  stranger,  for  on  that 
winter's  evening  he  met  Miss  Julia,  the  seventeen-year-old  daughter  of  his  host, 
just  returned  home  from  Moreau's  School  at  St.  Louis. 

Julia  was  full  of  life  and  a  superb  horsewoman,  who  delighted  to  ride  with 
the  young  soldiers,  but,  in  spite  of  himself.  Grant  was  as  uneasy  in  her  pres- 
ence as  he  was  unhappy  out  of  It. 

"  The  glances  from  her  eye  told  him  of  some  strange  fate. 
He  knew  not  what  it  meant ;  but  that  it  boded  him 
Some  coming  good  or  woe  he  could  not  dare  to  doubt." 

— Sheppard. 

Some  time  after  his  first  meeting  with  Julia  Dent  he  was  granted  a  fur- 
lough to  visit  his  parents  in  Ohio.  While  there  he  was  ordered  to  Louisiana  to 
join  General  Taylor's  army.  The  Mexican  War  was  threatening.  With  all 
possible  speed  he  hastened  back  to  the  Barracks.  But  It  was  not  the  prospect 
of  death  or  glory  In  war  with  his  companions-In-arms  that  made  him  nervous.  It 
was  the  face  of  Julia  Dent  that  rose  up  between  him  and  his  duty.  In  vain  he 
struggled  to  cast  her  Image  away.  The  silken  cords  whose  presence  he  knew 
not  of  till  then  were  cables  now.  He  must  admit  it.  He  loved  Julia  Dent. 
Had  she  ever  given  a  thought  of  him  lodgement  in  her  heart? 

Yes,  he  would  go  to  Mexico.  He  would  fight — die  If  necessary — for  his 
country,  but  first  he  must  see  Julia  Dent  and  tell  her  all  and  know  his  fate 
in  this  his  first,  life's  most  Important  battle. 

A  soldier  must  act  quickly.  In  a  state  of  feverish  excitement  he  mounted 
his  horse  and  took  the  shortest  course  for  White  Haven.  Within  a  short  dis- 
tance of  the  mansion  a  dangerously  swollen  river  lay  across  his  pathway.  The 
bold  horseman  rode  into  the  rapid  current.  He  was  washed  from  his  horse's 
back,  and  holding  to  the  bridle  the  "gallant  rider  and  the  gallant  steed"  were 
seen  struggling  in  the  stream  as  the  current  carried  them  down.  Supporting 
himself  by  swimming  with  one  hand,  Grant  guided  the  animal  with  the  other 
and  gradually  approached  the  shore. 

Again  on  the  back  of  his  dripping  steed,  he  galloped  away,  and  soon 
astonished  the  family  at  White  Haven  by  rushing  In  with  a  half-drowned  appear- 


^-6       THE  TANNER'S  WIFE  AND  MISTRESS  OF  THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 

ance.  A  change  of  borrowed  clothes  and  a  hearty  laugh  around  the  fireside 
over  his  adventure  and  his  farmer-like  appearance  in  citizen's  garb  had  the 
effect  of  reassuring  the  hero.  The  opportunity  for  which  he  had  come  was  not 
long  delayed,  and  Granf  s  first  fight  under  the  leadership  of  General  Cupid 
resulted  in  a  victory.  With  his  usual  military  bluntness  and  lack  of  eloquence, 
but  with  invincible  soldierly  dash,  he  assailed  without  ceremony  the  citadel  of 
fair  Julia's  affections,  and  she — setting  the  example  which  great  heroes  after- 
ward followed — surrendered. 

It  was  deemed  wise  not  to  notify  the  parents  at  the  time,  and  Grant,  with 
his  fellow-soldiers,  steamed  down  the  "  Father  of  Waters"  with  new  zeal  for 
the  duties  before  him  in  war,  and  a  vision  of  a  happy  home  presided  over  by 
his  ideal  of  female  loveliness — "by  and  by." 

For  some  time  the  troops  remained  at  New  Orleans.  Finally  it  became 
apparent  that  they  would  soon  be  ordered  to  invade  Mexico.  Lieutenant 
Grant's  thoughts  again  returned  to  White  Haven.  "Was  it  not  his  honorable 
duty  to  go  back  and  ask  the  parents  of  the  girl  who  had  promised  him  her 
hand?"  he  said  to  himself.  Was  it  a  question  of  honor ?  Perhaps;  but  had 
fair  Julia  been  somewhere  else  a  letter  might  have  served  to  bear  the  message 
which  now  the  gallant  soldier  must  carry  in  person. 

Again  the  household  at  White  Haven  was  astonished  by  his  sudden  arrival, 
this  time  in  the  properest  of  military  trim  The  interview  with  the  father 
resulted  in  Grant^ s  second  victory,  which  was  announced  with  as  much  publicity 
as  the  former  had  been  guarded  by  secrecy.  Back  to  New  Orleans,  and  on  to 
Mexico.  Is  it  any  wonder  Lieutenant  Grant  distinguished  himself  throughout 
the  struggle,  and  that  his  name  appeared  in  the  official  despatches  with  honor- 
able mention?  Palo  Alto,  Resaca  de  la  Palma,  Monterey,  Buena  Vista  are 
written  down  in  the  pages  of  history,  and  from  these  battle-fields  Julia  Dent, 
with  bated  breath,  received,  and  opened,  and  read  letters  from  her  soldier  lover. 

Peace  came,  and  on  the  return  of  his  regiment  in  1848  the  happy  young 
couple  were  married.  It  was  a  gala  day  at  White  Haven.  The  dancing  was 
kept  up  until  midnight.  The  company  consisted  of  numerous  friends  of  the 
family  and  Grant's  military  comrades.  The  negro  slaves  had  a  holiday,  and 
made  merry  in  the  yard  around  the  house.  Mr.  Dent,  the  father,  felt  proud  of 
his  daughter's  choice,  which  he  had  at  first  disapproved,  thinking  that  there  was 
little  promise  in  the  young  Lieutenant,  and — as  all  doting  fathers  do,  or  should 
— doubted  if  any  man  short  of  one  who  had  already  become  famous  was  worthy 
of  his  daughter's  hand.  The  prospect,  to  say  the  least,  was  now  better,  for  the 
young  officer  had  brought  home  evidences  of  his  patriotism,  bravery,  and  skill. 
Beside,  he  had  saved  the  life  of  Fred  T.  Dent  in  the  war.  Was  not  this  another 
reason  for  the  daughter's  love  and  the  father's  gratitude  ? 

A  furlough  of  four  months  covered  the  honeymoon  of  love,  feasting,  and 


GRANT  LEA  VES  THE  ARMY. 


ZZ7 


visiting  among'  friends  and  relatives,  and  then  from  all  these  pleasant  things 
the  call  of  duty  summoned  the  soldier  back  to  his  post,  and  with  him  went  the 
soldier's  bride.  Sackett's  Harbor,  a  military  post  on  Lake  Ontario,  for  a  while, 
and  then  Detroit  became  their  headquarters. 

Finally  in  1852  came  what  promised  to  be  a  long  separation.     The  Fourth 
Infantry,  to  which  Grant  belonged,  was  ordered  to  the  wilds  of  Oregon.     Mrs. 

Grant  could  not  go,  and  was   left  for  a  time  at  the 
-^       home  of  her  husband's  parents,  and  afterward 
she  was  to  go  to  her  relatives.      Grant 
was  promoted  to  the  rank  of  Captain, 
,   and  his  military  career  was  open- 
ing well,  with   promise  of  ad- 
vancement; but,  to  his 
^  credit  be  it  said,  he 

could  not  bear  sepa- 
ration from  his  wife, 
and  with  all  the  hon- 
ors in  store  he  val- 
ued them  not  if  she 
could  not  be  with 
him.  Therefore 
Captain  Grant  re- 
signed, came  home, 
took  off  his  uniform, 
and  determined  to 
live  and  support 
his  family  like  any 
other  citizen.  • 

This  act  was  not 
lacking  in  bravery. 
He  was  poor,  had 
no  prospects,  no 
money  ;  but  he  did 
have  a  wife  and  two 
babies,  and  he  would 
rather  live  with 
them  in  poverty  and 
obscurity  than  wear 
the    uniform  of  a 

commissioned  officer  and  receive  the  admiring  salutes  of  those  he  commanded. 
It  is  said  that  Mrs.  Grant  was  rejoiced  at  this  decision.     She  had  longed  for 


THE    HAPPY    MEETING   ON    GRANT'S    KEFUKN 
MEXICAN   WAR. 


l<ROM    THE 


^;^S       THE  TANNER'S  WIFE  AND  MISTRESS  OF  THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 

it,  but,  knowing  the  hardships  he  must  meet  if  he  did  it,  she  had  not  the  heart 
to  make  known  to  him  her  desires. 

This  incident  shows  three  appreciable  facts :  First,  that  Grant  was  not  an 
ambitious  man  in  the  offensive  sense  of  that  term,  which  grasps  for  power. 
Second,  he  was  wiUing  to  sacrifice  himself  for  his  family,  and  that  home  was 
the  dearest  place  on  earth  for  him.  Third,  the  marriage  of  (now)  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Grant  was  a  love  match,  and  they  were  both  so  unselfish  that  they  each 
considered  the  comforts  and  happiness  of  the  other  the  paramount  object  of 
their  lives. 

Now  let  Grant  prove  himself  What  should  he  do  ?  Mrs.  Grant  owned 
some  land  near  St.  Louis,  Thither  he  went  and  put  up  a  rude  house  with 
his  own  hands,  and  moved  his  family  to  it.  He  cleared  the  land  and  began 
farming.  He  worked  hard,  but  it  seemed  that  fate  was  against  him,  for,  like 
Patrick  Henry,  he  utterly  failed  as  a  farmer.  Mrs.  Grant  did  all  her  household 
work  and  attended  to  her  children,  ever  encouraging  her  husband  with  assur- 
ances of  faith  in  his  ultimate  success.  His  wife's  relatives  offered  him  assist- 
ance, and  he  struggled  on,  but  finally  had  to  give  it  up.  "He  was  not  cut  out 
for  a  farmer." 

Back  to  the  army?  Yes,  he  might  go.  He  could  if  he  wished.  But  he 
could  not  bear  the  thought  of  parting  with  her  and  them.  He  then  tried  busi- 
ness. Like  Patrick  Henry,  here  again  he  failed.  Real  estate  tempted  him. 
Others  succeeded  ;  why  not  he  ?  Failure  was  again  the  result.  Why  not  be 
an  auctioneer?  He  tried.  There  was  an  opening,  and  he  jumped  into  it.  He 
would  jump  into  anything  now,  for  his  wife  and  four  children  must  be  fed. 
He  mounted  the  auction-block.  What  folly!  He  never  could  talk.  Of  course, 
he  failed. 

What  should  he  do  ?  Back  to  the  army.  Disheartened,  he  went  to  his 
father  in  Galena,  Illinois,  for  advice.  His  father  had  tried  to  get  him  to  learn 
the  tanner's  trade  when  he  was  a  boy,  but  he  would  not,  for  he  did  not  like  the 
smell  of  the  vats  and  the  stain  of  the  tan-ooze.  But  that  tannery  was  now 
very  prosperous.  His  younger  brothers  managed  it.  He  could  get  a  job  as 
a  common  laborer  only,  because  he  did  not  know  how  to  do  anything  else. 
There  was  no  choice.  Wife  and  children  must  have  meat  and  bread,  and  honor 
and  manhood  demanded  he  should  earn  it.  He  could  go  back  to  the  army  and 
be  a  commander,  but  he  preferred  to  stay  with  his  wife  and  children  and  be  a 
common  laborer.  True,  they  could  live  in  more  comfort  on  the  pay,  and  have 
more  honor  in  the  neighborhood  as  the  wife  and  children  of  Captain  Grant, 
of  the  United  States  Army;  but  that  meant  his  absence,  and  they  preferred  to 
be  the  humble  family  of  a  laborer  in  the  tan-yard,  with  husband  and  father 
to  share  their  scanty  meals. 

Truly  has  Drummond  declared  "  Love  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world," 


TO  THE  FRONT  BENEATH  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES. 


339 


and  there  is  nothing  greater  in  Grant's  career  than  the  sacrifice  he  and  his 
family  made  for  this  the  crowning  passion  of  the  human  soul. 

At    the  tan-vat  in    Galena    the    ununiformed 
)ldier  stood  when  the  trumpet  of  war  sounded 
throughout  the  land,  and  it  was  no  longer  left 
matter  of  choice.     'Twas  duty's  call 
that  echoed  over  hill,  and  valley, 
plain,  and  Grant  had  never 
isobeyed  that  call,  whether 
it  sounded  in  blasts  of  war 
in  his   country's  cause, 
or  whispered  a  small 
still    voice   within 
when    his    country 
needed  him   not — 
except  at  his  hum- 
ble fireside. 

With  the  con- 
sent of  Julia,  always 
his  guardian  angel, 
he  laid  aside  the 
apron  and  the  cur- 
rying-knife  of  the 
tanner,  and,  kissing 
his  wife  and  chil- 
dren fa  re  well, 
buckled  on  his 
sword,  and  as  a 
volunteer  captain 
marched  away  to 
the  front  beneath 
the  Stars  and 
Stripes. 
^  The     eulogistic 

pages  of  history 
tell  us  the  rest. 
The  world  knows 
the  story  of  this 
four  years'  terrific 

struggle,   when  brother  smote  brother,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  laid  down 
their  lives,  and  the  land  was  baptized  in  blood,  and  the  cry  of  pain  went  up 


GRANT,  MISS  DENT,  AND  HER  BROTHER. 


340       THE  TANNER 'S  WIFE  AND  MISTRESS  OF  THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 

from  almost  every  home  in  the  land  for  father,  husband,  son,  or  lover  sacrificed 
on  the  altar  of  war's  bloody  carnage. 

Mrs.  Grant  visited  her  husband  at  Fort  Donelson,  at  Jackson,  Mississippi. 
She  also  spent  several  weeks  with  him  at  Vicksburg,  and  when  his  headquarters 
were  established  at  Nashville  she  removed  there  and  remained  in  that  city  until 
after  his  appointment  as  Lieutenant-General.  Everywhere  she  was  confident 
of  his  success,  and  had  he  doubted  for  himself  she  would  have  driven  all  doubts 
from  his  mind. 

When  the  tan-yard  Captain  from  Galena  came  back,  it  was  not  as  the  vol- 
unteer Captain  marching  on  foot  at  the  head  of  his  little  company,  but  as  the 
hero  Commander-in-Chief,  riding  at  the  head  of  all  his  nation's  host.  All  hail, 
Lieutenant-General  Ulysses  S.  Grant! — a  rank  which  had  been  held  in  our 
country  only  by  Washington,  "the  Father  of  his  Country,"  and  by  General  W\ 
Scott,  the  hero  of  the  Mexican  War.  This  honor  was  now  resting  upon  the 
brow  of  him  who,  four  years  before,  was  currying  leather — a  hireling  in  a  tan- 
yard — and  the  country  and  the  world  were  now  hailing  him  as  "  the  saviour  of 
his  nation  !" 

This  was  a  proud  day  for  the  hero  and  a  proud  day  for  the  heroine  who 
had  shared  his  adversity;  but  we  dare  say  the  most  joyous  occasion  of  that 
return  was  when  he  first  met  the  wife  and  children  of  his  bosom  alone,  and  he 
and  they  realized  that  the  war  was  over,  and  from  out  all  the  danger  he  had 
come  unscathed  to  remain  with  them. 

How  much  honor  was  due  Mrs.  Grant  for  the  victories  achieved  we  know 
not,  but,  as  already  stated,  she  spent  much  time  with  her  husband  at  headquar- 
ters during  the  war,  and  was  his  constant  encourager.  Men  used  to  say  she  was 
his  adviser  also  in  his  military  movements.  Certain  it  is  she  took  great  interest 
in  them. 

Let  it  also  be  remembered  that  General  Grant's  moderation  and  maofna- 
nimity  to  the  conquered  South  placed  a  stamp  on  his  greatness  which  will 
endure  with  that  of  his  military  skill.  How  much  he  was  influenced  in  this  by 
Mrs.  Grant  is  also  a  matter  of  conjecture,  but  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  she 
played  her  part  in  this  magnanimous  act,  for  her  faniily  were  slaveholders  and 
they  were  warm  Southern  sympathizers,  as  was  Grant  himself,  and  it  is  doubt- 
ful if  anything  short  of  firing  on  the  flag  at  Fort  Sumter  could  have  moved 
him  to  take  up  arms  against  a  people  he  and  she  so  much  esteemed. 

After  the  war  was  over,  for  the  first  time  in  her  married  life,  Mrs.  Grant 
went  to  live  in  a  comfortable  house  that  she  could  call  her  home.  They  now 
had  a  house  in  Washington,  and  she  declared  the  four  years  between  this  and 
the  time  General  Grant  became  President  were  the  happiest  years  of  her  life. 
Her  husband  had  a  military  appointment  for  life,  with  ample  pay,  friends,  and 
honor,  and  a  happy  home.  What  more  could  she  wish  1  But  the  country  had 
greater  honors  for  her. 


GREATER  HONORS. 


W 


Then  came  the  eight  years  of  residence  in  the  White  House,  as  "first 
lady  of  the  land."  These  she  enjoyed,  for  they  were  a  continual  season  of 
such  ovations  as  no  other  woman,  save  Lady  Washington,  had  ever  seen  shov/- 
ered  upon  the  man  she  loved. 

The  social  life  at  the  White  House  under  her  was  gay  and  well  directed. 
It  was  said  by  Mrs.  Grant's  most  intimate 

friends    that    she    would    have    preferred  f 

a  quiet,  unostentatious 
home,  but  the  casual  ob- 
server and  ordinary  visitor 
on  state  occasions  would 
never  have  believed  this 
statement.  She  appeared 
to  enjoy  thoroughly  her  po- 
sition as  "first  lady  of  the 
land,"  and  had  too  much 
sense  of  her  position  to 
allow  any  patronage.  Mrs.  / 
Lincoln  and  the  dauorhter 
of  Andrew  Johnson,  whom 
she  succeeded,  had  lived 
under  a  cloud  and  per- 
formed their  parts  as  an 
irksome  duty.  Mrs.  Grant, 
on  the  contrary,  entered 
with  a  pure  womanhood  and 
the  sympathy  and  confi- 
dence of  society  "^o  back  her 
zeal  in  making  the  society 
of  her  court  the  pride  of 
best  society  in  the  capital 
ceptions,  and  it  was  she  who 
pretty  custom,  still  prevail- 
herself  with  ladies  of  dis- 
doingr  the  honors, 
dinners  everything  was  con 


GRANT  AT   WINDSOR  CASTLE. 


her  nation.  The 
flocked  to  her  re- 
introduced the 
ing,  of  surrounding 
tinction  to  assist  in 
At  her  state 
ducted  in  liberal 


style,  and  it  is  said  that  she  entertained  more  distinguished  guests  than  any 
preceding  mistress  of  the  White  House.  Among  others  were  Emperor  Dom 
Pedro  and  Donna  Teresa  of  Brazil,  Queen  Victoria's  son.  Prince  Arthur,  and 
the  Czar's  son,  Grand- Duke  Alexis. 

The  hero  of  Appomattox  was  the  second  time   elected   President.     Is  it 


342      THR  TANNER'S  WIFE  AND  MISTRESS  OF  THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 

really  true  that  Mrs.  Grant  censured  her  husband  for  refusing  to  run  for 
a  third  term  as  President  of  the  United  States  ?  It  is  said  she  did.  But  it 
is  also  said  that  it  was  not  so  much  because  she  disliked  to  give  up  the  place 
she  had  so  gracefully  filled  as  because  of  the  belief  that  her  husband  was  the 
only  man  in  his  party  who  could  lead  them  again  to  victory.  The  fact  that 
President  Hayes  was  seated  amid  great  excitement,  threatening  a  terrible  war, 
may  argue  the  correctness  of  Mrs.  Grant's  judgment. 

The  retiring  lady  received  her  successor  with  gracious  winsomeness,  and 
tendered  a  handsome  entertainment  to  her.  The  incoming  President  and  his 
wife  were  even  invited  to  choose  the  company  they  desired  to  meet  on  this 
occasion,  and  after  the  pleasant  event  was  over  Mrs.  Grant  "turned  over  the 
keys"  (if  we  may  use  this  expressive  slang)  to  Mrs.  Hayes,  leaving  her  a  lib- 
eral supply  of  food  in  the  pantry.  The  White  House  was  left  in  perfect  order, 
which  was  in  strange  contrast  to  the  condition  the  retiring  lady  had  entered  it 
eight  years  before. 

In  May,  after  the  inauguration  of  President  Hayes,  General  Grant,  accom- 
panied by  his  wife  and  their  youngest  son,  Jesse,  together  with  Mr.  John  Rus- 
sell Young,  now  Librarian  of  Congress,  started  on  that  famous  tour  of  the 
world  which  has  become  a  part  of  history.  The  Prince  of  Wales,  the  Queen  of 
England,  and  after  them  the  reigning  sovereigns  of  almost  all  great  nations 
entertained  them.  They  wandered  over  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  and  at  every 
court  they  were  treated  according  to  the  rules  of  good  breeding  as  recognized 
throughout  the  world. 

After  their  return,  two  years  later,  the  General's  friends  urged  him  to  stand 
again  before  his  party  for  President.  Mrs.  Grant,  after  this  foreign  travel,  was 
keenly  desirous  to  occupy  the  White  House  once  more,  and  if  the  Convention 
had  nominated  her  husband  it  is  doubtful  if  her  influence  would  not  have  com- 
pelled him  to  break  the  precedent  established  by  Washington.  General  Grant 
used  to  say  his  wife  was  his  ambition.  Certainly  she  had  a  cause  for  feeling 
proud  of  him,  and  those  who  know  her  best  agree  that  her  ambition  was  for 
him  rather  than  herself. 

But  Garfield  was  nominated  and  elected,  and  General  Grant  and  his  family 
removed  to  New  York,  where  they  were  received  by  the  best  society. 

By  the  advice  of  his  son,  the  General  invested  all  his  capital  in  the  banking 
business.  The  concern  was  prosperous.  The  little  fortune  grew,  doubled  and 
doubled  again,  and  the  whilom  tanner  counted  himself  a  millionaire.  But 
''Grant  is  not  a  business  man  "  had  been  said  and  proven  when  he  was  young, 
and  the  unlucky  star  of  adversity  rose  again  the  latter  part  of  1883.  Misfor- 
tunes followed  each  other  fast  until  one  morning,  when  he  entered  his  office, 
his  son  Ulysses  met  him  with  this  salutation:  "Father,  you  had  better  go  home. 
This  bank  has  failed." 


REMARKABLE  HEROISM.  343 

Grant  &  Ward,  brokers,  had  failed.  His  family,  and  friends,  and  the  Gen- 
eral lost  their  all.  Beside,  Grant  had  recently  borrowed  ^150,000  from  William 
H.  Vanderbilt,  which  he  had  turned  over  to  his  faithless  partner.  Mr.  V-^.nder- 
bilt  offered  to  make  this  debt  a  present  to  Mrs.  Grant,  but  they  declined  to 
accept  it.  Everything  Grant  possessed  and  his  wife's  own  home,  which  a 
grateful  people  had  given  her,  were  transferred  to  Mr,  Vanderbilt. 

It  was  a  dark  day  for  the  old  hero  and  his  wife,  for  after  he  had  given  up 
everything  his  honor  was  assailed  by  those  who  had  suffered  by  his*  failure, 
though  he  and  his  family,  including  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Sartoris,  had  lost  every- 
thing in  the  crash.     This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  disaster. 

The  "Century  Magazine"  offered  him  a  handsome  remuneration  to  write 
a  series  of  articles  on  the  war.  He  did  it  for  "  bread  and  meat,"  he  said,  for  he 
disliked  literary  work,  but  he  must  again  earn  a  living. 

The  success  was  phenomenal,  and  suggested  the  writing  of  his  "Memoirs," 
for  which  several  publishers  made  him  offers.  He  really  accomplished  this  work 
in  a  dying  condition,  for  scarcely  had  he  begun  it  when  the  terrible  throat  cancer 
of  which  he  died  in  1885  appeared. 

Death  seemed  to  wait  at  the  very  threshold  for  him  to  finish  it.  His  only 
incentive,  he  declared,  was  the  all-absorbing  love  he  bore  his  wife,  children,  and 
crrandchildren.  The  book  was  true  to  the  mission  on  which  he  sent  it.  No 
memoir,  and  indeed  perhaps  no  other  work  of  its  volume  ever  published  in 
America,  brought  so  much  royalty  in  so  short  a  time.  It  is  estimated  that  fully 
one-half  million  dollars  in  royalties  have  been  paid  to  the  family  of  the  author, 
placing  them  again  independently  beyond  want.  Beside,  Mrs.  Grant  was  pen- 
sioned by  the  Government  ^5000  per  annum. 

The  heroism  of  Mrs.  Grant  was  remarkable  and  admirable  in  her  hus- 
band's lingering,  painful,  and  fatal  illness.  She  put  aside  her  grief  and  was 
always  cheerful  for  his  sake.  "Even  in  his  dying  hour,"  says  one  biographer, 
"she  controlled  herself — held  his  hand  and  looked  lovingly  into  his  eyes  until 
they  were  closed  in  death." 

When  the  remains  of  General  Grant  were  removed  to  the  splendid  new 
tomb  at  Riverside  Heights,  New  York,  Mrs.  Grant  saw  placed  beside  thr 
sarcophagus  of  her  distinguished  husband  an  exact  duplicate  prepared  for  her 
self,  inscribed  "Julia  Dent  Grant."  She  was  also  the  honored  guest  of  Phila- 
delphia at  the  unveiling  of  General  Grant's  equestrian  Statue  in  Fairmount 
Park,  May  1899.  The  veil  was  dropped  from  the  statue  by  her  granddaughter, 
who  in  1899  married  the  Russian  Count  Cantacuzene.  In  1898,  when  the 
Spanish  war  began,  numerous  societies  of  women  were  formed  for  the  purpose 
of  relief.  Chief  among  these  organizations  was  the  War  Relief  Association, 
of  which  Mrs.  Grant  was  elected  president.  This  society  sent  the  hospital 
ghip  Relief  2ind  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  supplies  to  the  $oldier3. 
31  §  &  D 


THE    FAMOUS    CHAMPION    OF   WOMAN    SUFFRAGE, 


MISS    SUSAN    B.    ANTHONY 


SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY,  AT  36. 


Susan  B.  Anthony  achieved  her  own  greatness, 
and  her  life  is  an  inspiration  to  the  noble-souled 
girl  whose  ambition  is  to  do  good,  but  who  is  impa- 
tient at  the  beginning.  No  life,  perhaps,  among 
all  our  great  women  is  a  more  pointed  illustratior 
of  Agnes  L.  Pratt's  assertion  that 

"We  must  live  through  the  weary  winter 

If  we  would  value  the  spring ; 
And  the  woods  must  be  cold  and  silent 

Before  the  robins  sing. 
The  flowers  must  lie  buried  in  darkness 

Before  they  can  bud  and  bloom ; 
And  the  sweetest  and  warmest  sunshine 

Comes  after  the  storm  and  gloom." 


Susan  B.  Anthony  was  born  on  the  15th  of  February,  1820,  in  South  Adams, 
Massachusetts.  Her  father,  Daniel  Anthony,  was  a  Liberal  (or  Hicksite) 
Quaker,  and  her  mother  a  Baptist.  Mr.  Anthony  had  a  fairly  prosperous  busi- 
ness as  a  cotton  manufacturer,  and  it  was  not  necessary  that  his  children  should 
resort  to  employment  for  self-support,  but  he  and  his  wife  both  believed  that 
women  as  well  as  men  should  be  able  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and  he  edu- 
cated his  daughters  accordingly.  This  was  a  wise  step,  for  in  1837,  j^^t  as 
Susan  reached  her  womanhood,  a  financial  crash  caused  her  father's  failure,  and 
his  children  afterward  greatly  aided  him  in  his  efforts  to  retrieve  his  fortune. 
When  the  children  were  young,  skilful  teachers  were  employed  in  his  own 
household,  and  afterward  he  sent  Susan  to  a  Friends'  boarding  school  in  Phila- 
delphia. In  1826  Mr.  Anthony  removed  from  Massachusetts  to  Washington 
County,  New  York,  and  in  1846,  after  his  reverses  in  business,  took  up  his  resi- 
dence in  Rochester.  At  the  age  of  seventeen  Susan  began  to  teach  in  a  Quaker 
family,  receiving  the  munificent  sum  of  one  dollar  a  week  and  board.  After  this 
she  taught  in  the  public  schools,  where  she  received  eight  dollars  per  month  for 
the  same  grade  of  work  for  which  men  were  paid  twenty-five  and  thirty  dollars 
per  month.  In  fact,  the  Superintendents  gave  her  credit  for  the  best  disciplined 
and  the  most  thoroughly  taught  scholars  in  the  county.  The  practical  sense  ot 
justice  in  the  young  school  mistress  rebelled  against  such  treatment,  and  she 

344 


A   VALUABLE  LESSON.  345 

petitioned  the  Superintendent  for  equal  pay  with  male  teachers  if  her  work  was 
as  good.  This  was  denied  her  on  the  ground  that  she  was  a  woman.  Miss 
Anthony  submitted  to  the  injustice,  and  continued  her  teaching  until  1850,  sav- 
ing, as  she  declares,  out  of  the  fifteen  years'  work,  the  sum  of  $300. 

But  Susan  B.  Anthony  learned  one  valuable  lesson  that  was  worth  all  the 
loss  she  sustained  in  the  salary,  and  she  at  the  same  time  received  a  conviction 
that  has  been  the  guiding  star  of  her  lifework.  The  lesson  was  this  :  That 
woman  can  do,  in  certain  lines,  just  as  good  work  as  man.  The  conviction  was 
that  woman  never  will  receive,  never  could  receive,  proper  recognition  or  proper 
pay,  or  be  able  to  do  the  work  God  intended  her  to  accomplish  unless  she 
should  be  given  equal  rights  with  man,  and  this  she  believed  could  be  obtained 
only  by  placing  the  ballot  in  her  hands.  This  lesson  and  this  conviction  made 
her  a  woman  suffragist,  and  to  that  end  for  a  full  half  century  she  has  devoted 
herself  with  unflagging  zeal  and  untiring  energy. 

It  is  proper  to  say,  however,  that  Miss  Anthony,  though  she  recognized 
the  justice  of  woman's  right  to  the  ballot,  regarded  it  first  as  entirely  beyond 
the  range  of  possibility,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  she  would  ever  have  openly 
espoused  the  cause  had  it  not  been  for  the  influence  of  her  friend,  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton.  It  was,  indeed,  Mrs.  Stanton  and  Lucretia  Mott,  in 
the  year  1S48,  who  called  and  held  the  first  Woman's  Right  Convention,  which 
met  at  Seneca  Falls,  New  York.  Of  her  association  and  that  of  Miss  Anthony 
we  will  speak  later.  Miss  Anthony  first  spoke  in  public  in  1847  i^  the  cause 
of  temperance.  She  was  then  over  twenty-six  years  of  age.  The  Sons  of  Tem- 
perance had  invited  the  Daughters  of  Temperance  to  a  Convention  at  Albany. 
The  "daughters"  came,  but,  to  their  surprise,  the  "sons"  would  not  allow  them 
to  talk  in  the  public  meeting.  Miss  Anthony's  strongest  characteristic  has 
always  been  her  courage,  and  it  was  then  that  she  rose  in  that  meeting  and 
denounced  the  injustice  shown  to  her  sex,  and  under  her  guidance  half  a 
dozen  women  left  the  hall,  determined  to  hold  a  temperance  meeting  of  their 
own,  which  they  did.  Out  of  this  grew  the  Woman's  New  York  State  Tem- 
perance Society,  formed  in  1852,  the  first  ever  organized  in  the  world,  and  it 
was  the  foundation  of  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union.  This,  Miss 
Anthony  says,  was  her  first  rebellion,  and  she  has  never  been  afraid  from  that 
day  to  this  to  rebel  against  any  injustice  or  to  try  to  correct  a  wrong. 

"  My  first  meeting  with  Susan  B.  Anthony,"  says  Mrs.  Stanton,  "was  in 
1851  in  the  temperance  movement,  although  she  had  for  several  years  previous 
lectured  on  that  subject  and  formed  temperance  societies  while  teaching.  In 
May  following  she  called  a  Woman's  Temperance  Convention  in  Rochester. 
Corinthian  Hall  was  packed  during  the  proceedings,  a  State  society  was  formed, 
and  three  delegates— Miss  Anthony,  Mrs.  Bloomer,  and  Mrs.  Mary  Hallowell 
--were  appointed  to  attend  the  Men's  State  Temperance  Convention  at  Syra- 


346  THE  FAMOUS  CHAMPION  OF  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

cuse  in  June.  The  delegates  went,  but  were  denied  a  right  in  the  Convention. 
The  very  idea  of  a  woman's  society  or  a  woman  delegate  quite  upset  the  gen- 
tlemen of  the  Convention.  The  clergy,  as  usual,  were  especially  denunciatory. 
.  Rev.  Mr.  Lee,  of  the  Wesleyan  Church,  invited  the  ladies  to  speak  in 
his  house  in  the  evening.  The  consequence  was,  while  they  had  an  immense 
audience,  the  men's  Convention  was  almost  deserted." 

No  opposition,  however  great,  could  discourage  Miss  Anthony,  once  she 
felt  it  her  duty  to  espouse  a  cause,  and  it  was  through  her  exertions  and  those 
of  Mrs.  Stanton  that  woman  came  at  last  to  be  admitted  to  the  educational 
and  other  conventions,  with  the  right  to  speak,  vote,  and  serve  on  committees. 

As  said  above.  Miss  Anthony  was  not  one  of  the  inaugurators  of  the 
woman's  right  movement.  In  fact,  when  she  first  heard  of  it,  before  she  knew 
Mrs.  Stanton,  it  is  said  that  she  laughed  at  the  impossibilities  of  the  under- 
taking, admitting  and  defending  its  justice.  She  was  teaching  away  from  home 
at  the  time  Lucretia  Mott  and  Mrs.  Stanton  called  the  first  Convention,  in  1848, 
at  Seneca  Falls,  and  it  was  a  year  or  two  later,  when  she  returned  home,  that 
she  found  her  family  had  been  to  a  later  Convention  at  Rochester  and  had 
become  thorouofh  converts  to  the  doctrine,  and  she  herself  lost  no  time  in  em- 
bracing  the  new  faith. 

Another  doctrine  which  Miss  Anthony  early  imbibed  from  her  association 
with  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  was  that  of  the  Abolitionists.  Mrs.  Stanton  had 
accompanied  Lucretia  Mott  in  1840  to  the  Antislavery  Convention  in  London, 
and  from  that  time  forward  entered  with  her  usual  force  and  zeal  into  the  move- 
ment. From  1857,  when  Susan  B.  Anthony  first  espoused  the  antislavery 
movement,  until  the  emancipation  came,  January  ist,  1863,  she  was  an  agent 
and  faithful  worker  for  the  cause. 

One  of  the  greatest  battles  of  Miss  Anthony's  life  was  that  involving  the 
discussion  of  the  Woman's  Property  Rights  Bill  in  the  Legislature  of  New  York. 
During  1854  and  1855  she  held  fifty-four  conventions  in  different  counties  of  the 
State,  with  two  petitions  in  hand:  one  demanding  equal  property  rights,  the  other 
the  ballot  for  women,  and  she  presented  them  to  the  Legislature  with  10,000 
names  signed.  In  performing  this  labor  she  travelled  throughout  the  State  in  all 
seasons,  in  stage  coaches,  open  wagons,  or  sleighs,  going  sometimes  from  door 
to  door  on  foot,  and  at  times  suffering  all  sorts  of  insults  without  complaint. 
When  asked  if  this  was  not  a  very  difficult  task,  she  laughingly  gave  the  greater 
honor  to  Mrs.  Stanton  by  declaring  that  nothing  she  did  required  more  tact  or 
patience  than  she  had  to  summon  to  amuse  Mrs.  Stanton's  four  rollicking  boys, 
as  she  often  had  to  do  when  their  mother  was  writing  out  some  petition  or  article 
for  the  paper  on  their  common  cause.  But  that  Miss  Anthony  was  successful 
In  taking  care  of  the  boys  is  also  evident,  for  they,  like  the  people  she  met  every- 
where, were  so  fond  of  her  that  they  regarded  her  as  their  second  mother. 


A  BROAD  AND  GENEROUS  NATURE. 


347 


Mrs.  Stanton,  in  speaking  of  her  friend,  Miss  Anthony,  personally,  says: 
"Though  she  was  never  beautiful,  she  always  had  a  fine  figure.  Her  head  is 
large  and  well-shaped.  The  world  calls  her  sharp,  angular,  cross-grained.  If 
she  has  her  faults  and  angles  they  are  all  on  the  outside.  She  has  a  broad  and 
generous  nature,  and  a  depth  of  tenderness  that  few  women  possess.  True,  she 
does  not  faint,  or  weep,  or  sentimentalize  ;  but  she  has  genuine  feeling,  a  tender 
love  for  all  true  men  and  women,  a  reverence  for  noble  acts  and  words,  and  an 
active  pity  for  those  who  come  to  her  in  the  hour  of  sorrow  and  trial.  She  is 
earnest,  unselfish,  and  true  to  principle  as  the  needle  to  the  pole.  In  an  inti- 
mate friendship  of  eighteen  years  I  can  truly  say  I  have  never  known  her  to  do 
or  say  a  mean  or  narrow  thing.  She  is  entirely  above  that  petty  envy  and  jeal- 
ousy that  mar  the  character  of  so  many  otherwise  good  women.  She  is  alway.s 
full  of  the  work  before  her,  and  does  it,  going  through  and  over  whatever 
stands  in  her  way.  The  legislators  of  this  State 
can  testify  as  to  her  pertinacity  and  perseverance." 

In  i860,  largely  through  Miss  Anthony's  in- 
fluence, the  New  York  Legislature  passed  an  act 
giving  to  married  women  the  possession  of  their 
earnings  and  the  guardianship  of  their  children. 
Durinof  the  war  she  devoted  herself  to  the  Women's 
Loyal  Legion,  which  petitioned  Congress  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery.  She  and  Mrs.  Stanton  se-  \ 
cured  nearly  400,000  signatures  to  these  petitions 
from  different   parts  of  the  country,  and  they  were  \ 

so  powerful  in  arousing  the  people  and  Congress  ^ 

that  Charles  Sumner  urged  Miss  Anthony  to  con- 
tinue the  work.     "Send  on  the  petitions,"  he  wrote;       susan  n.  anthony  at  56. 
"they  furnish  the  only  background  for  my  demands." 

But  amidst  all  her  work  for  the  slaves  she  did  not  forget  her  theme  of  woman 
suffrage.  It  was  in  i860,  also,  that  she  started  the  petition  in  favor  of  leav'ng 
out  the  word  "male"  in  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  and  worked  with  the 
National  Woman  Suffrage  Association  to  induce  Congress  to  secure  to  her  sex 
the  right  of  voting. 

In  1867,  in  company  with  Mrs.  Stanton  and  Lucy  Stone,  she  went  to  Kan- 
sas, and  there  obtained  9000  votes  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage,  thus  laying  the 
foundation  of  that  political  doctrine  which  has  at  last  prevailed  in  several  of 
the  Western  States,  where  woman,  before  the  close  of  the  century,  has  been 
admitted  to  the  full  privileges  of  the  ballot.  In  186S,  with  the  co-operation  of 
Mrs.  Stanton  and  others,  she  began  in  New  York  city  the  publication  of  The 
Revolutionist^  devoted  to  woman  suffrage. 

The  most  dramatic  event,  perhaps,  in  Miss  Anthony's  life  was  her  arrest 


348  THE  FAMOUS  CHAMPION  OF  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

and  trial  for  illegal  voting  at  the  State  and  Congressional  election  in  Roches- 
ter, N'few  York,  in  1872.  She  cast  her  vote  in  order  to  test  the  application  of 
the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  the  Constitution.  When  asked 
by  the  Judge  "You  voted  as  a  woman,  did  you  not?"  she  replied  :  "  No,  sir  ;  I 
voted  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States."  Before  the  date  set  for  the  trial  Miss 
Anthony  thoroughly  canvassed  her  county  and  instructed  the  people  in  citizens' 
rights,  intending  in  that  way  to  have  the  jurors,  whoever  they  might  be,  well 
instructed  in  advance.  To  her  chagrin,  however,  a  change  of  venue  was  ordered 
to  another  county,  setting  the  date  three  weeks  ahead  ;  but  Miss  Anthony  was 
equal  to  the  emergency.  In  twenty-four  hours  dates  were  set  and  appointments 
made  for  a  series  of  meetings  in  that  county,  and  the  country  was  thoroughly 
aroused  in  Miss  Anthony's  behalf.  The  jury  would,  no  doubt,  have  acquitted 
her,  but  the  Judge,  declaring  it  was  a  question  of  law  and  not  of  fact,  pronounced 
Miss  Anthony  guilty  and  fined  her  ^100  and  costs.  With  her  usual  defiance 
to  injustice  she  declared  :  "  I  shall  never  pay  a  penny  of  this  unjust  claim.  Re- 
sistance to  tyranny  is  obedience  to  God."  And  to  this  day  she  has  not  paid 
this  fine. 

There  is  hardly  a  State  in  the  Union  where  Miss  Anthony  has  not  worked. 
Twice  in  her  life  during  campaigns  she  has  spoken  in  sixty  counties  in  New 
York.  In  1895,  when  seventy-five  years  old,  she  made  a  tour  of  the  West, 
speaking  as  she  went,  and  ending  with  a  month's  work  in  California.  In  her 
work  for  womankind  she  seems  to  have  wholly  forgotten  herself,  and  makes  no 
personal  claims.  The  International  Council  of  Women  was  her  idea,  although 
she  always  is  willing  it  should  be  attributed  to  others. 

At  the  Centennial  she  had  been  mortified  at  the  poor  representation  and 
opportunity  women  had,  and  she  resolved  such  a  thing  should  not  happen  again 
in  her  lifetime.  Accordingly,  when  the  World's  Fair  of  1893  was  being  planned, 
Miss  Anthony  went  to  Washington.  She  invited  the  wives  and  daughters  of 
official  men  to  meet  at  the  RisfSfs  House  to  consider  the  interest  of  women  in  the 
fair,  and,  for  fear  her  radical  views  would  hinder  the  progress  of  the  enterprise, 
she  did  not  present  herself  at  the  meeting,  but  walked  about  her  room  awaiting 
the  result.  The  women  organized,  but  before  they  could  take  any  action  the 
bill  came  up  in  Congress.  Miss  Anthony,  seeing  the  time  was  short,  drew  peti- 
tions and  rapidly  circulated  them  herself  and  through  friends,  and  in  a  few  hours 
the  names  of  seventy-nine  wives  and  daughters  of  Supreme  Court  Judges,  Sen- 
ators, and  Representatives  were  affixed  to  the  petition,  and  thus  the  amendment 
providing  for  the  appointment  of  women  on  the  Commission  was  passed.  Al- 
though she  was  the  originator  of  this  act,  and  the  direct  cause  of  its  existence, 
she  never,  in  her  several  speeches  at  the  fair  or  elsewhere,  referred  to  her  part 
in  it.  "No  matter  how  it  started,  so  it  did  start,"  she  would  say  when  it  was 
mentioned. 


ALL  YOUNG  WOMEN  LOVE  '■'AUNT  SUSAN"  349 

There  probably  never  was  a  leader  more  loved  by  young-  workers  than 
Miss  Anthony.  She  has  a  sad  and  rather  stern  manner  to  strangers,  but  with 
young  women  she  is  "one  of  the  girls,"  and  has  the  rare  quality  of  bringing  out 
and  developing  them.  She  has  faith  in  them,  and  never  seems  to  doubt  their 
ability  to  do  any  branch  of  work.  She  looks  about  a  new  community,  spies  a 
young  woman,  gives  her  a  task,  and  ten  chances  to  one  is  successful.  All  young 
women  love  her. 

Mrs.  Stanton  and  the  women  older  than  Miss  Anthony  always  depended 
upon  her  as  their  executive ;  those  of  her  own  age  and  younger  looked  to  her 
for  advice  and  sisterly  fondness,  while  the  young  women,  the  new  women,  wor- 
shiped her.  Among  them,  from  Maine  to  California,  she  is  known  as  "Aunt 
Susan."  In  1895  she  said  in  a  speech  at  Ashtabula,  "No  woman  has  a  right 
to  die  till  she  has  done  something  for  womankind,"  and  a  young  woman  about 
twenty  years  old,  a  member  of  the  Convention,  replied,  "  We  as  young  women 
have  no  right  to  let  Aitnt  Susan  die  till  she  sees  the  fulfilment  of  her  desires." 

In  February,  1898,  the  National  Convention  of  the  Woman  Suffrage  Asso- 
ciation met  at  Washington,  D.  C.  '*  Aunt  Susan,"  as  everybody  called  her, 
presided  and  was  in  her  glory,  for  the  reports  from  everywhere  showed  won- 
derful progress,  and  many  States  had  already  given  the  ballot  to  women.  When 
Miss  Anthony  introduced  Miss  Grace  E.  Patton,  the  State  Superintendent  of 
Education  in  Colorado,  who  addressed  the  Convention,  she  said  with  exulta- 
tion,  "And  she  is  a  voter.     Look  at  her!" 

When  the  roll-call  of  pioneers  in  the  work  came.  Miss  Anthony  referred 
most  happily  to  those  who  had  been  forty  or  fifty  years  in  the  service,  calling 
them  familiarly  by  their  given  names.  When  she  came  to  introduce  the  Rev, 
Antoinette  Blackwell  (who  began  to  speak  for  woman's  rights  in  1846)  she 
said:  "We  could  always  brag  on  Antoinette,  because  in  her  young  days  she 
was  beautiful  and  the  rest  of  us  were  not,  and  she  had  a  sweet  voice  and 
many  of  us  didn't,  and  she  was  orthodox  and  some  of  us  were  not." 

She  also  introduced  the  venerable  sister  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher — "  Mrs. 
Isabella  Beecher  Hooker,  with  her  handsome  silvery  curls  and  light  weight  of 
seventy-six  years" — who  addressed  the  Convention,  and  following  her  came 
many  young  women,  for  all  of  whom  she  had  a  hearty  pleasant  word.  Is  it 
any  wonder  she  felt  happy  and  enjoyed  the  title  "Aunt  Susan,"  which  those 
hundreds  of  women  used  in  addressing  her? 

"Love  lightens  labor,"  says  an  old  adage.  Perhaps  that  is  why  Susan  B. 
Anthony  remains  so  full  of  spirits  and  so  strong  after  a  long  life  of  labor.  One 
of  the  young  delegates  at  the  1898  Convention  exclaimed,  when  told  her  age, 
"What!  Aunt  Susan  cannot  be  seventy-eight  years  old.  No.  Why,  she's 
the  youngest  and  jolliest  girl  in  the  Convention  !" 


THE   BANKER'S    DAUGHTER  WHO    BECAME   FAMOUS, 


JULIA    WARD    HOWE 


"  Honor  and  fame  from  no  conditions  rise ; 
Act  well  your  part — there  all  the  honor  lie.." 

The  adage,  "  Poverty  and  hardships 
are  the  father  and  mother  of  greatness," 
is  not  always  true.  There  are  exceptions 
to  this  as  to  all  other  general  rules,  and 
Julia  Ward  Howe,  author  of  the  "  Battle 
Hymn  of  the  Republic,"  is  one  of  them. 

She  was  born  May  27th,  18 19,  and 
reared  in  New  York  city,  her  father  being 
a  wealthy  banker,  well-bred  and  scholarly. 
His  ambition  was  that  his  little  pet,  Julia — 
a  wise  little  atom,  even  in  her  babyhood — 
should  not  be  merely  a  fashionable  girl. 
He  gave  her  teachers  and  books  and  ap- 
pealed to  her  ambition,  using  every  effort 
to  arouse  her  artistic  instinct  and  kindle 
her  religious  nature.  Her  quick  intellect 
and  spirit  responded  to  every  touch. 

At  five  years  of  age  the  fond  mother 
of  this  precocious  child  died.  At  ten  years 
another  shadow,  darker  than  that  of  five 
years  before,  came  over  her  life.  The  devoted  father  sickened  and  died.  Little 
Julia  was  now  an  orphan.  But  she  had  learned  before  the  panacea  for  all 
her  grief.  Her  father  had  left  her  abundant  wealth,  and  in  her  books 
and  in  her  reveries  she  found  meat  to  eat  that  other  children  of  her  tender 
age  knew  not  of.  All  nature,  the  muses,  and  the  fountains  of  learning  beckoned 
her,  and  she  answered  their  call.  In  the  study  of  the  German  language  and 
literature  she  came  into  a  shining  inheritance  which  she  declared  created  in  her 
new  faculties  of  comprehension.  Goethe  and  Schiller  were  her  prophets  and 
kings,  and  she  received  with  large  welcome  their  subde  speculative  philosophies. 
In  her  school-girlhood  she  published  learned  reviews  of  German  authors  and 
translations  of  a  sketch  from  a  number  of  them  in  verse. 

Thus  grew  Julia  Ward  to  womanhood — reading,  writing,  dreaming;  as  fiery 


JULIA  WARD  HOWE. 


350 


EARLY  AGE,  EDUCATION,  AND  TRAINING.  351 

within  as  her  rich  bright  hair  and  beaming  eye  declared  her  to  be;  but,  under 
the  repression  of  her  education,  apparendy  cold  and  within  an  approach  of  the 
haughty  in  her  outward  manner.  "At  twenty  years  of  age,"  says  one  of  her 
biographers,  ''  the  effect  of  such  studies  and  such  restraint  upon  one  of  so 
romantic  and  sendmental  a  nature  longing  for  the  actual  vivacity  of  life,  she  was 
subject  to  seasons  of  passionate  and  profound  melancholy.  Her  German  studies 
had  made  her  skeptical  and  indifferent  to  the  formal  worship  in  which  she  had 
been  bred,  and  no  vital  belief  as  to  God  and  Christianity  cheered  her. 

"At  this  juncture,  into  this  vague,  hungry,  and  dark,  moody  heart  of  hers 
came  the  awful  kindness  of  death  taking  away  an  idolized  brother.  His  death 
and  funeral  so  impressed  her  that  for  two  years  she  read  little  else  than  the 
Bible,  which  she  undertook  as  a  meritorious  devotional  exercise,  and  the  ques- 
tioning heretic  became  a  religious  and  spiritual  enthusiast." 

For  a  while  her  ideas  of  withdrawing  from  the  world  and  crucifying  the 
flesh  were  almost  of  monkish  severity  ;  but  from  this  life  of  a  recluse  another 
circumstance  happily  released  her.  One  day  a  friend  put  into  her  hand  "  Gui- 
zot's  History  of  Civilization."  She  studied  it  with  all  the  vigor  of  her  well- 
trained  mind,  and  its  large,  broad  thought  aroused  her  from  the  fatal  dream  of 
secluded  holiness  and  opened  her  eyes  to  a  life  of  usefulness. 

Her  self-centred  imagination  took  wings.  She  became  a  Liberalist  in  poli- 
tics, and  in  religion  a  thoughtful  inquirer,  "Paradise  Lost"  and  "Dante's  In- 
ferno" were  read  and  re-read,  and  she  felt  their  gloomy  grandeur  to  her  inmost 
soul.  She  compared  their  teachings  to  God's  justice  and  God's  mercy  as  taught 
in  the  Bible,  and  as  a  result  of  this  comparison  her  "reason  was  compelled," 
she  declared,   "to  reject  an  eternal  hell  as  impossible." 

God  is  love,  God  is  good,  God  is  truth,  God  is  light,  God  is  happiness,  God 
is  merciful  and  kind,  was  her  creed.  As  such  she  loved  Him,  and  pointed  hu- 
manity to  Him  as  the  one  and  only  source  of  all  that  is  good,  and  lovely,  and 
desirable.  With  such  a  conception  she  would  lure  people  into  heaven,  instead 
of  trying  to  frighten  them  out  of  hell.  Such  was  the  education  and  training 
this  young  woman  had  enjoyed,  and  such  was  her  character  when,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-three,  in  1843,  she  married  Dr.  Samuel  Howe,  of  Boston,  whose  labors 
for  Greece  in  her  struggle  for  independence,  whose  beaudful  devotion  to  the 
blind,  and  whose  antislavery  crusade  made  him  a  man  of  prominence. 

The  young  people  went  abroad  immediately  to  spend  a  year  in  the  Old 
World.  She  came  to  the  countries  of  Europe  as  a  queen  comes  to  her  own. 
Had  she  not  studied  their  history,  geography,  manners,  and  customs  from  her 
childhood,  and  visited  them  a  thousand  times  in  her  vivid  imagination  ?  All  the 
beauty,  maturity,  and  solemn  antiquity  of  ancient  lands  seemed  her  inheri- 
tance. 

Rome,  magnificent  and  desolate,  made  her  life  a  rapture.     There  her  first 


352 


THE  BANKER'S  DAUGHTER  WHO  BECAME  FAMOUS. 


child  was  born,  and  her  mother-love  for  her  babe  was  hardly  deeper  dian  her 
passion  of  sad  tenderness  for  the  supreme  city.  Now,  and  here,  for  the  first 
time,  her  firmament  was  high  enough  to  let  her  stand  upright.  For  many  months 
she  lived  in  this  inspiring  atmosphere,  and  then  returned  to  her  cold,  practical 
New  England,  and  settled  down  to  housekeeping,  all  the  time  continuing  her 
studies,  for  which  the  difficulties  she  encountered  only  stimulated  her.  In  1850 
she  again  went  abroad,  returning  to  her  beloved  Rome,  where  she  passed 
the  winter  with  her  two  youngest  children.  Here  she  wrote  most  of  the  poems 
included  in  "Passion  Flowers,"  which  was  published  on  her  return — her  first 
book.  In  referring  to  this  winter  in  Rome,  she  says  :■  "Art,  and  books,  and  my 
precious  children  made  this  season  my  golden  prime  of  happiness." 

On  their  return  to  Boston  Dr.  Howe  undertook  the  editorship  of  "The  Com- 
monwealth," a  newspaper  dedicated  to  free  thought,  and  zealous  for  the  liberty 
of  the  slaves.  Mrs.  Howe's  opportunity  had  now  come.  She  wrote  editorials, 
literary  articles,  and  poems,  and  contributed  those  brilliant  paragraphs  for  which 
the  paper  became  famous.  This  success  opened  the  way  for  the  publication  of 
her  volume  of  verse  entitled  "Passion  Flowers,"  already  alluded  to,  and  which 
made  its  appearance  in  1853,  and,  though  it  was  published  with  no  name  on  the 
title-page,  the  public  learned  that  it  was  Mrs.  Howe's  book,  and  it  was  hailed 
and  praised  no  doubt  beyond  its  artistic  merits.  "  It  is  a  book  powerful  and 
pungent,  but  unripe,"  said  the  critics.  The  masses  said  it  was  grand.  Its  per- 
sonalism  was  terrible.  In  every  page  it  said,  according  to  one  critic,  "  Lo,  this 
thing  which  God  has  made  and  called  by  name  !  What  is  it?  Why  is  it?  Be- 
hold its  passions  and  temptations,  its  triumphs  and  its  agonies  of  defeat,  its 
fervors  and  its  doubts,  its  love  and  its  scorn,  its  disappointments  and  its  acqui- 
escence !"  Another  wrote  :  "  Here  at  last  in  America  is  a  true  woman  poet; 
not  an  echo,  nor  a  shadow,  nor  a  sweet  singer  of  nothings.  Another  Sidney, 
chivalrous,  gracious,  and  eager  for  her  part  in  the  battle  of  life ;  to  whom,  also, 
the  muse  said  '  Look  into  thy  heart  and  write  !'  "  Such  was  the  reception  into 
literature  which  greeted  this  long-trained  and  deeply-learned  mind.  And  once 
entered,  like  the  refrain  of  her  noble  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,  her  fame 
went  "  marchine  on." 

Space  forbids  more  than  passing  notice  of  her  great  lifework,  which  at  last 
had  begun  in  real  earnest.  About  the  time  of  the  publication  of  "  Passion 
Flowers,"  "Words  for  the  Hour,"  a  drama  in  blank  verse,  was  produced  in  a 
leading  theatre  in  New  York  and  Boston.  Her  interest  in  the  slavery  question 
and  her  writing  upon  it  gave  her  a  national  reputation — popular  among  her 
friends  and  unpopular  among  her  foes,  but  prominent  on  both  sides. 

In  1855  came  her  book  of  poems  entitled  "Words  for  the  Hour,"  a  book 
in  which  her  red  heart-blood  seemed  to  course  through  the  lines.  These  poems, 
like   those  of  "  Passion   Flowers,"  showed  haste,  and  were   inartistic,  but  they 


HER  GREAT  LIFE  WORK.  353 

were  replete  with  ripe  thought,  and  defiant  and  full  of  promise.  .  .  .  And 
"the  common  people  heard  her  gladly."  Her  passionate  expression,  terrible 
sarcasm,  love,  hate,  scorn,  with  now  and  then  stately  rhythm  and  glimpses  of  lyric 
beauty,  lavished  by  an  intense  soul,  revealed  to  all  a  power  which  no  woman 
but  Elizabeth  Browning  has  ever  exceeded. 

All  critics  now  acknowledged  her  genius,  but  some  of  them  refused  to 
accept  her  into  the  charmed  circle  of  poesy  because  she  lacked  the  art,  the 
finish,  the  rule  they  demanded.  But  all  genius  is  independent,  and  so  Mrs. 
Howe  went  steadily  on  her  way,  saying  such  witty,  sharp  things  about  her 
detractors  that  at  length  it  took  a  critic  of  marked  courage  to  assail  her,  and, 
when  he  did,  he  usually  found  himself  sustained  only  by  artists  and  critics ;  the 
masses  were  with  the  poetess. 

In  1857  she  and  her  husband,  as  companions  to  the  dying  Theodore 
Parker,  visited  Havana,  and  on  her  return  she  published  her  observations  in  a 
book  entitled  "A  Trip  to  Cuba,"  which  so  vigorously  attacked  the  degrading 
institutions  of  the  Spanish  rule  that  its  sale  has  since  been  prohibited  on  the 
island.  About  this  same  time  the  readers  of  the  "New  York  Tribune"  were 
charmed  with  occasional  letters  from  Boston,  Washington,  New  York,  and  other 
cities,  written  in  a  style  so  chatty,  and  yet  so  full  of  information  about  the  places 
and  people,  manners,  and  customs,  poetry,  art,  religion,  etc.,  that  every  one  was 
delighted.  And  when  it  was  learned  that  Mrs.  Howe  had  written  them  the 
world  manifested  its  obligations  for  the  bright  living  pictures  she  had  painted. 
It  was  a  new  form  of  letter  that  has  since  become  a  feature  of  every  pretentious 
newspaper. 

The  busy  woman  also  turned  her  mind  diligently  upon  the  study  of  philos- 
ophy in  various  branches.  Swedenborg,  Kant,  Spinoza,  Fichte,  Hegel,  and 
others  were  mastered.  "lam  afraid,"  she  said  to  a  friend,  "  I  believe  in  each 
one  until  I  read  the  next."  She  wrote  many  admirable  social  and  philosophic 
papers,  and  prepared  a  course  of  six  drawing-room  lectures  on  ethics,  which 
were  read  with  splendid  effect  before  the  most  critical  audiences. 

In  1 86 1  appeared  her  famous  "Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,"  with  the 
chorus  "John  Brown's  Body,"  etc.,  which  was  published  in  her  third  volume, 
entitled  "  Later  Lyrics."  The  song  and  chorus  at  once  became  known  through- 
out the  country,  and  were  sung  everywhere.  In  1867  Mrs.  Howe  and  her  hus- 
band visited  Greece,  and  won  the  gratitude  of  that  nation  by  aiding  them  in  the 
effort  they  were  making  for  national  independence.  Her  book  "  From  Oak  to 
Olive  "  was  written  after  her  visit  to  Athens.  In  1868  Mrs.  Howe  joined  the 
Woman's  Suffrage  Movement,  and  the  next  year,  before  the  Legislature  in 
Boston,  made  her  first  speech  urging  its  principles,  and  from  that  time  forward 
has  been  officially  connected  with  the  movement. 

In  1872  Mrs.  Howe  again  visited  England,  where  she  lectured  in  favor  of 


354  THE  BANKER'S  DAUGHTER  WHO  BECAME  FAMOUS. 

arbitration  as  the  means  of  settling  national  and  international  disputes.  At  the 
same  time  she  held  in  London  a  series  of  Sunday  evening  services  devoted  to 
Christian  missionary  work.  During  the  same  year  she  attended,  as  a  delegate, 
the  Congress  for  Prison  Reform  held  in  London.  On  her  return  to  the  United 
States  she  organized  or  instituted  the  Woman's  Peace  Festival,  which  still  meets 
once  every  year  on  the  2 2d  of  June. 

Since  her  husband's  death,  which  occurred  in  1876,  this  learned  woman  has 
preached,  lectured,  and  travelled  much  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States,  the 
most  popular  of  her  lectures  being  "Is  Polite  Society  Polite  ?"  "Greece  Re- 
visited," and  "Reminiscences  of  Longfellow  and  Emerson."  In  1878  Mrs. 
Howe  made  another  journey  abroad,  and  spent  over  two  years  in  travel  in  Eng- 
land, France,  Italy,  and  Palestine.  She  was  one  of  the  presiding  officers  of  the 
Woman's  Rights  Congress  which  met  at  Paris,  and  she  lectured  in  that  city  and 
in  Athens  on  the  work  of  the  various  women's  associations  in  America.  She 
served  as  President  in  the  Association  of  Advancement  for  Women  for  several 
years,  and  at  a  greatly  advanced  age  retained  her  connection  with  this  organiza- 
tion as  an  earnest  promoter  of  their  interest.  She  has  formed  a  number  of 
women's  social  clubs,  having  for  their  object  mental  improvement,  in  which  the 
members  study  Latin,  French,  German,  literature,  botany,  political  economy, 
and  many  other  branches. 

Mrs.  Howe's  three  living  daughters,  all  of  whom  are  married,  have  been 
followers  of  her  theories  concerning  woman's  freedom.  One  of  them,  Mrs. 
Laura  Richards,  is  a  well-known  writer  of  stories  for  children,  some  of  which 
are  classics  of  their  kind.  "Captain  January"  is  her  best-known  book.  Mrs. 
Maud  Howe  Elliot,  the  third  daughter,  is  a  successful  lecturer  and  also  a  novel- 
ist. Mrs.  Florence  Howe  Hall,  another  daughter,  is  a  writer  of  acknowledged 
ability  on  social  topics. 

Were  we  in  Boston  to-day  it  would  be  pleasant  to  walk  around  on  Beacon 
Street  and  see  the  old-fashioned  house  where  this  grrand  old  woman,  with  the 
snow  of  eighty  winters  upon  her  brow,  sits,  mingling  the  twilight  of  her  event- 
ful life  with  the  evening  of  the  closing  century,  of  which  she  has  been  a  potent 
factor  in  its  progress  and  developments.  In  her  unpretentious  little  home  have 
sat  and  talked  the  greatest  men  of  America  and  many  of  the  European  celeb- 
rities who  have  visited  this  country.  Even  the  casual  visitor  to  the  home  of 
this  aged  woman  feels  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  place,  with  its  mementoes  of 
great  men  and  women,  some  indefinable  flavor,  like  a  lingering  perfume,  which 
tells  him  there  has  been  high  thinking  and  noble  speech  within  the  walls  which 
surround  them. 


PAROUS  WOMEN   ORATORS  AND  REFORHER 


I         THE  TEACHER,   THE   MODEL  MINISTER'S   WIFE,   AND 

!  HUMANITY'S    FRIEND, 

1 

MARY    ASHTON    RICE    LIVERMORE. 


Mary  A.  Livermore,  the  famous  scholar, 
teacher,  hospital    nurse,  editress,  lecturer,  anti- 
slavery   advocate,    temperance    advocate,    and 
woman  suffragist,   has    shown  woman  what  a 
woman  can  do  under  tlie  most  adverse  circum- 
stances and  in  face  of  the  world's  opposition. 
Her  life  is  an  inspiration  to 
girls  to  make  the    most  of 
then"kselves  and  their  oppor- 
tunides,  and  it  has  been  a 
blessing  to  mankind  and  a 
crown  of  honor    and  glory 
to  herself 

Mary  Rice  was  the 
daughter  of  Timothy  Rice, 
and  was  born  in  Boston, 
December  19,  182 1.  For 
six  generations  her  ances- 
tors had  been  Welsh  preach- 
ers, and  she  was  reared  by 
parents  of  the  strictest  Cal- 
vinistic  faith.  Her  father 
was  a  man  of  honesty  and 
integrity,  and  her  mother 
was  a  woman  of  remark- 
able judgment  and  strong  intellect.  She  was  early  sent  to  the  public  schools 
in  Boston  and  displayed  unusual  aptness,  advancing  so  rapidly  that  she  grad- 
uated at  the  age  of  fourteen  and  received  a  medal  for  good  scholarship.  Two 
years  later,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  she  graduated  at  the  seminary  at  Charles- 
town,  Mass.,  having  completed  the  four-years'  course  in  two  years.  For  the 
next  two  years  she  was  a  tutor  in  this  insdtution,  teaching  French  and  Latin, 
at  the  same  time  studying  to  perfect  herself  in  Greek  and  metaphysics  under 
a  private  tutor, 

255 


MRS.  LIVERMORE  AS  THE  YOUNG  GOVERNESS  iNl  THE 
SOUTH. 


356     THE  TEACHER,  MODEL  MINISTERS  WIFE,  HUMANITY S  FRIEND. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen,  against  the  will  of  her  parents,  she  determined  to 
go  South  and  investigate  for  herself  the  slavery  question,  which  at  that  time 
was  being  agitated  by  the  Abolitionists.  Her  sympathies  had  been  especially 
wrought  upon  by  the  lectures  of  Lucretia  Mott  and  the  Quaker  poet,  John  G. 
Whittier ;  but  her  own  religious  denomination — the  Presbyterians — and  her 
associations  generally  were  not  in  sympathy  with  the  "despised  sect,"  as  the 
Quakers  were  called ;  and  still  less  did  they  countenance  the  "  fanatical 
zealots,"  as  Garrison,  Wendell  Phillips,  and  their  followers  were  declared 
to  be. 

For  nearly  three  years   Mary  Rice   lived  as  governess  or  tutor  in  a  rich  i, 
Southern  home  in  Virginia.     At  the  age  of  twenty-one  she  returned  to  Massa-  ' 
chusetts  an    uncompromising  Abolitionist,   and   remained   so  for  twenty-three 
years,  neglecting   no  opportunity  to  plead  for  the   black  man's  right  to  liberty  l{ 
until  the  last  gun  of  the  Civil  War  was  silent  and  the  nation's   blood  and  treas- 
ure had   paid  the   price  of  his  freedom.     For  two  years  after  her  return  she 
taught  a  select  school  for  young   ladies   at   Duxbury,  Mass.,  which  she  discon- 
tinued  in    1845,  when  Dr.  D.  P.  Livermore,  a  Universalist  minister,  made  her 
his  wife. 

Few  women  have  been  more  helpful  to  their  husbands,  and  it  is  doubt- 
ful if  any  have  been  better  fitted  in  spirit  and  mind  to  fill  "  the  difficult 
position  of  a  minister's  wife."  From  her  childhood  Mrs.  Livermore  was  most 
industrious,  overly  charitable,  and  intensely  religious.  When  she  was  in  school, 
if  a  little  boy  or  girl  was  a  cripple,  or  wore  shabby  clothes,  had  poor  food  for 
dinners,  or  was  ridiculed,  such  an  unfortunate  always  found  an  earnest  friend 
and  defender  in  the  courageous  Mary  Rice.  In  her  home  were  also  five  broth- 
ers and  sisters,  younger  than  herself,  and  so  much  did  she  take  to  heart  the 
matter  of  their  conversion  that  when  but  ten  years  old,  unable  to  sleep,  she 
would  rise  from  her  bed  and  waken  her  father  and  mother  and  ask  them  to 
pray  for  her  sisters.  She  was  a  natural  preacher.  Even  in  her  playtime  one 
of  her  chief  pastimes  was  holding  meetings  in  her  father's  wood-shed  with  other 
children.  Great  logs  were  laid  out  for  benches,  and  sticks  were  set  up  on  them 
for  people  when  they  wanted  to  increase  their  congregation.  Mrs.  Rice  said  : 
"  Mary  was  always  the  leader  in  praying  and  preaching  in  the  meetings.  I  was 
so  much  amused  that  I  had  to  laugh  at  them,  but  Mr.  Rice  often  looked  on  half 
reverently,  and  on  more  than  one  occasion  said  to  Mary,  '  I  wish  you  had  been 
born  a  boy ;  you  could  have  been  trained  for  the  ministry.'  " 

But  we  must  not  conclude  that  this  thoughtful  child,  mature  beyond  her 
years,  was  not  full  of  those  sportful  feelings  which  characterize  other  children. 
Her  robust  body  showed  that  she  had  not  neglected  to  exercise  it  as  nature 
intended.  She  was  as  fond  of  outdoor  sports  and  merry  times  as  any  other 
child,  but  her  better  nature  and  common  sense  dominated,  and  controlled,  and 


EARLY  YEARS  AND  MARRIAGE.  357 

guided  her  in  every  indulgence.  "  Sliding  on  the  ice,"  says  her  biographer, 
"was  her  special  delight.  One  day,  after  a  full  hour's  fun  in  the  bracing  air, 
she  rushed  into  the  house,  her  blood  tingling  in  every  vein,  exclaiming,  '  It's 
splendid  sliding.'  'Yes,' replied  her  father,  'it's  good  fun,  but  wretched  for 
shoes.'  All  at  once  the  young  girl  saw  how  hard  it  was  for  her  parents  to  buy 
shoes  with  their  limited  means,  and  from  that  day  to  this  she  never  slid  upon 
the  ice." 

But  this  disposition  to  help  her  parents  did  not  stop  with  merely  saving  her 
personal  apparel  from  wear.  She  wanted  to  earn  something.  She  could  not 
bear  to  think  of  the  father  having  to  make  the  living  for  the  whole  large  family. 
So  when  she  was  twelve  years  old  she  decided  to  learn  dressmaking,  though 
she  says  she  "disliked  sewing  above  almost  all  work  ;"  "but,"  she  said,  "work 
is  no  more  disgrace  to  a  girl  than  to  a  boy,"  and  besides  this  would  enable  her 
to  help  her  father.  For  three  months  she  worked  without  pay  that  she  might 
learn  her  trade,  and  after  that  she  got  thirty-seven  cents  a  day  for  every  day 
she  worked. 

When  Mary  Rice  returned  from  the  South,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  and 
opened  her  school  at  Duxbury,  Mass.,  she  had  ^600  of  her  own  earning,  and 
was  one  of  the  most  learned  women  of  her  age.  Her  students  in  the  school  at 
Duxbury  adored  her,  and  the  dullest  caught  her  enthusiasm.  Many  were  the 
long  walks  she  took  with  them,  and  "talked  sense"  by  the  way.  "It  was 
woman's  duty,"  she  said,  "  to  make  her  body  as  vigorous  as  her  heart  was  sym- 
pathetic." 

After  marriage  to  Dr.  Livermore  she  immediately  began  to  help  her  hus- 
band as  she  had  helped  her  parents.  She  at  once  organized  literary  and  benev- 
olent societies  among  the  membership.  She  was  also  an  active  temperance 
advocate  and  organized  a  cold-water  army  of  i  500  boys  and  girls,  whom  she 
delighted  with  temperance  stories  which  she  wrote  and  read  to  them.  These 
stories  were  afterwards  published  under  the  name  of  "The  Children's  Army." 

In  1857  the  family  moved  to  Chicago,  where  Dr.  Livermore  became  editor 
of  the  "New  Covenant,"  the  Universalist  organ  of  the  Northwest,  and  his  wife 
his  assistant.  During  her  husband's  absence  Mrs.  Livermore  had  charge  of  the 
entire  establishment,  paper,  printing,  office,  and  publishing  house  included,  and 
wrote  for  every  department  of  the  paper  except  the  theological,  at  the  same 
time  furnishing  stories  and  sketches  to  the  Eastern  publications.  She  was  also 
untiring  in  church,  Sunday-school  and  charitable  work.  During  these  fifteen 
years,  from  1845  to  i860,  three  children  came  to  bless  their  home,  and  "life, 
with  all  its  cares  and  work,  was  a  very  happy  one,"  says  the  hard-working 
woman. 

In  i860,  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was  nominated  for  President,  Mrs.  Liver- 
more was  the  only  woman  reporter  present,  and  was  perhaps  the  first  woman 


358     THE  TEACHER,  MODEL  MINISTERS  WIFE,  HUMANITY'S  FRIEND. 

representative  of  the  public  press  who  ever  attended  and  reported  an  important 
poHtical  convention. 

In  1 86 1  the  nation  was  plunged  into  civil  war,  and  now  the  time  had  come 
for  the  quiet  life  of  Mary  Livermore  to  be  entirely  changed.  When  the  Presi- 
dent called  for  75,000  volunteers  she  was  in  Boston,  and  saw  the  troops  start 
for  the  front.  After  the  train  moved  out  four  women  fainted,  and  Mrs.  Liver- 
more  helped  to  restore  the  grief-stricken  moth- 
ers to  consciousness,  and  in  comforting  words 

told  them  that  she  envied  them,  in  that  they  II  -s^^^j:-^^     II 

could  send  their  sons  to  battle  for  their 
country,  while  she  herself  had  none  to 
send. 

"What    can    a  woman    do?"  was 
the  question  that  came  up  in  the  noble 
women's  minds.     They  held  a  meeting 
in  New  York  and  sent  this  question  to 
the    front.     The    answer 
came :  We  have  no  place 
for   women  ;    they  cannot 
fight,  and  we  do  not  need 
them  nor  want  them  in  the 
hospitals. 

They  organized,  any- 
how, and  called  themselves 
"The  United  States  Sani- 
tary Commission."  Their 
object  was  to  provide  bed- 
ding, fruits,  clothing,  and 
all  needed  comforts  for  the 
camp  and  hospitals.  Mrs. 
Livermore  and  Mrs.  A.  H. 
Hoge  were  put  in  charge  of 
the  Northwestern  branch. 
Mrs.  Livermore  and  a  few 
others  went  to  Washing- 
ton to  see  President  Lincoln,  and  they  put  this  direct  question  to  the  great 
man : 

"  Can  no  woman  go  to  the  front?" 

"The  law''  said   Mr.  Lincoln,  "does  not  grant  to  any  civilian,  either  man 
or  woman,  the  privilege  of  going  to  the  front." 

But  they  noticed  be  emphasized  the  words  law  and  g^ant,  and  that  he  did 


MRS.  LIVERMORE  AS  A  YOUNG  TEACHER. 


THE  CAREER  WHICH  MADE  HER  FAMOUS.  359 

not  S2c^  prohibit .  Long  before  he  had  declared  the  law  of  right  and  humanity 
was  higher  even  than  the  written  Constitution.  He  was  not,  could  not  be, 
opposed  to  anything  which  would  help  the  men  who  were  fighting  and  bleeding 
for  their  country. 

Mrs.  Livermore  was  now  forty  years  old,  and  was  just  beginning  the 
career  which  made  her  famous.  She  resigned  all  other  work,  secured  a  gov- 
erness for  her  children,  and  devoted  herself  entirely  to  the  work  of  relief  and 
assistance  to  soldiers.  She  organized  soldiery'  aid  societies,  delivered  public 
addresses,  wrote  circulars,  bulletins,  and  reports,  and  made  trips  to  the  front 
with  sanitary  stores,  giving  personal  attention  to  the  distribution  of  the  same, 
and  bringing  back  invalid  soldiers,  accompanying  many  of  them  in  person  to 
their  homes.  She  enlisted  nurses  for  the  hospitals  and  accompanied  them  to 
their  posts,  and  herself  nursed  and  cheered  the  sick  and  wounded.  To  tell  the 
story  in  half  the  detail  it  deserves  would  require  the  scope  of  a  volume.  At  the 
close  of  the  war  she  published  these  interesting  and  touching  details  in  a  volume 
entitled   "  My  Story  of  the  War,"  which  we  heartily  recommend  to  our  readers. 

This  book  is  regarded  as  the  most  complete  record  of  the  hospital  and 
sanitary  work  in  the  Union  army  during  that  great  fratricidal  struggle.  It  is 
replete  with  thrilling  scenes  and  touching  incidents,  depicting  alike  the  horrors 
of  battlefields  and  the  pain  and  pathos  of  army  hospitals  and  prisons. 

In  the  rear  of  the  battlefields  this  Sanitary  Commission,  as  soon  as  it  was 
admitted  to  the  front,  kept  its  wagons  of  hot  soup  and  hot  coffee,  and  brave, 
virtuous  women  to  administer  it  in  the  midst  of  danger.  They  held  up  the 
head  of  the  wounded  man  with  one  hand,  while  they  pressed  the  canteen 
of  cool  water  to  his  lips,  administered  medicine,  or  wiped  the  death-damp  trom 
his  brow,  or  wrote  the  last  message  of  love  to  wife,  or  mother,  or  sister  at 
home.  Such  women  behind  a  body  of  fighting  men  were  an  inspiration  to 
deeds  of  valor  and  heroism  which  no  other  influence  could  impart. 

Mrs.  Livermore,  by  her  speeches  and  sanitary  fairs,  which  she  organized 
often  in  the  face  of  the  press's  ridicule,  raised  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars 
for  the  hospital  and  relief  work,  and  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands  of  soldiers 
owe  their  lives  to  her  influence. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  she  had  become  so  famous  and  the  people  were 
so  anxious  to  hear  her  that  she  entered  the  lecture  field,  and  for  years  held  the 
foremost  place  among  women  as  a  public  speaker.  She  lectured  five  nights  a 
week  for  five  months,  travelling  25,000  miles  annually.  Her  fine  voice,  womanly, 
dignified  manner,  and  able  thought  brought  crowded  houses  before  her  year 
after  year,  and  the  money  she  earned  she  spent  generously  for  others. 

The  war  also  made  her  a  woman  suffragist.     Previously  she  had  opposed 
it,  but  her  experience   in   the  army  taught  her  differently.     She  organized  the 
first  Woman  Suffrage  Convention  in  Chicago,  and  was  its  first  President. 
22s  &D 


36o     THE  TEACHER,  MODEL  MINISTER'S  WIFE,  HUMANITY'S  FRIEND. 


In  1869  she  started  "The  Agitator,"  a  woman-suffragist  paper,  at  her  own 
expense,  and  in  this  she  also  advocated  temperance.  In  1870  the  family  removed 
to  Melrose,  Mass.,  and  she  became  editor  of  the  "Woman's  Journal,"  which  she 
retained  two  years,  giving  it  up  in  1872  to  devote  her  time  entirely  to  the  lec- 
ture field.  In  this  capacity,  during  a  quarter  of  a  century,  at  the  instance  of  the 
Lyceum  Lecture  Bureau,  she  visited  every  State  in  the  Union,  and  also  went 
abroad,  lecturing  in  many  places  in  Europe.  The  charm  of  Mrs.  Livermore's 
manner  and  the  eloquence  of  her  delivery  have  been  equalled  by  few  modern 
speakers. 

During  all  this  period  her  pen  has  never  been  idle.      "The   North  Ameri- 
can  Review,"    "The   Arena,"   "The  Chautauquan,"  "  Independent,"   "Youth's 
Companion,"   "Wo- 
man's Journal,"  and 
other  high-class  pe- 
riodicals   have    en- 
riched their  columns 
with    her    contribu 
tions. 

Other  duties, 
many  of  them,  came 
at  the  same  time. 
For  ten  years  she 
was  President  of  the 

Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  of 
Massachusetts,     She  has  also  long  served 
as  President  of  the  Woman's   Suffraofe  Associa 
tion,  President  of  the  Benefit  Society  of  the  New 
England  Conservatory  of  Music  and  also  of  the 
Woman's  Congress. 

In  addition  to  her  many  crowding  duties  and 
demands  upon  her  time,  after  she  was  seventy-five  years  of  age,  at  the  urgent 
entreaty  of  her  friends,  she  wrote  the  autobiography  of  her  life,  a  large  volume 
of  over  700  pages,  published  in  1897.  The  book  is  a  fitting  crown  to  her  noble 
lifework.  In  this  volume,  after  taking  a  retrospect  of  her  fruitful  past,  filled  with 
hardships,  but  also  with  many  triumphs  and  pleasures,  she  turns  with  pleasing 
willingness  and  joy  to  the  prospects  of  the  world  to  come,  and  says  :  "I  prefer 
to  go  forward  into  the  larger  life  that  beckons  me  further  on,  where,  I  am  sure, 
it  will  be  better  than  here." 

But  it  seems  until  that  summons  come  there  is  to  be  no  cessation  from  her 
labors.  She  is  still  lecturing  and  laboring  for  the  causes  dear  to  her  heart.  On 
Washington's  Birthday,  1898,  she  delivered  in  the   morning  an  address  at  the 


MRS.  LIVERMORE   THE  EDITRESS. 


NO  CESSATION  FROM  HER  LABORS. 


361 


dedlciition  of  the  Mary  Heminway  School,  in  Dorchester,  and  in  the  evening 
presided  at  a  patriotic  meeting  in  Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  for  the  benefit  oJ 
the  survivinof  nurses  of  the  Civil  War. 
At  this  meeting  it  was  learned  that  sixty- 
four  of  these  nurses  were  still  living  in 
Massachusetts,  half  of  them  more  th:  n 
seventy  years  of  age  ;  that  many  of  them 
received  no  pay  for  their  services  in  hos- 
pitals and  on  battlefields,  and  in  their 
declining  years  were  destitute.  Mrs. 
Livermore  is  endeavoring  to 
have  them  comfortably  pio- 
vided  for.  On  May  4th,  1898, 
a  bust  of  Mrs.  Livermore  was 
unveiled  and  presented  to  the 
Shurtleff  School  in  Boston  by 
the  Alumnae  Association  of  that 
institution,  and  occupies  a  place 
opposite 
that    c  f 


MRS  LIVERMORE  THE  LECTURER. 


Lucy  Stone.     The  bust  was   the  work  of  Miss  Annie  Whitney,  the  well-known 
sculptor.     The  "Boston  Globe"  in  referring  to  it  said: 


362     THE  TEACHER,  MODEL  MINISTER'S  WIFE,  HUMANITY'S  FRIEND. 

"  This  marks  the  second  occasion  when  the  bust  of  a  well-known  woman 
has  been  presented  to  the  school  by  the  graduates.  Two  years  ago  the  bust 
of  Lucy  Stone  was  given  to  the  school,  and  on  this  occasion  Mrs.  Livermore 
delivered  the  eulogy  on  the  life  and  work  of  Mrs.  Stone. 

"  The  Lucy  Stone  bust  was  the  first  bust  of  a  woman  that  the  city  of  Bos- 
ton had  ever  consented  to  accept  as  a  gift,  its  conservatism  being  so  strong 
against  recognizing  the  sculptured  honors  paid  to  women  that,  at  the  time  the 
Harriet  Martineau  statue  was  finished  for  Wellesley  College,  the  City  Fathers 
refused  to  allow  an  exhibition  on  public  ground  of  Miss  Whitney's  masterpiece 
because  it  was  the  statue  of  a  woman." 

On  the  occasion  referred  to  Mrs.  Livermore  and  the  orator,  Wendell  Phil- 
lips, went  before  the  City  Fathers  to  plead  for  the  exhibition  of  the  statue,  but 
they  were  refused.  It  must  be  as  pleasing  as  it  is  significant  to  Mrs.  Livermore 
to  know  that  she  has  lived  to  see  the  day  when  the  city  of  Boston,  with  appro- 
priate ceremonies,  has  received  her  own  bust  and  placed  it  in  one  of  the  gram- 
mar schools  of  the  city. 


MOTHER  McKINLEY,  AGE 


THE  NOBLE  MOTHER  OF   PRESIDENT  McKINLEY, 

NANCY   ALLISON. 

Religious  tyranny  in  Europe  drove  many  a  heroic  spirit  to  the  New  World 
who  assisted  in  laying  the  foundation  stones  of  our  present  great  national 
structure.  Among  those  who  first  fled  from  persecution  were  the  ancestors  of 
William  McKinley,  twenty-fifth  President  of  the  United  States. 

When  William  Penn  chose  exile  in  the  wilderness,  with  a  free  conscience 
to  worship  God  without  molestation,  rather  than  to  remain  where  he  might  have 
become  a  favored  courtier  at  the  throne  of  a  king,  he  brought  with  him  Andrew 
Rose,  who  owned  all  the  land  on  which  Doylestown,  Pennsylvania,  stands  to-day. 
He  was,  before  the  Revolution,  one  of  the  representatives  of  the  thirteen  colonies. 
His  granddaughter,  Mary  Rose,  became  the  great-grandmother  of  President 
McKinley.  Andrew  Rose  the  second,  the  father  of  Mary  Rose,  did  double 
duty  in  the  war  for  freedom.  He  both  fought  and  made  weapons  for  others  to 
fight  with  against  Great  Britain. 

James  McKinley,  a  fine  Scotch-Irish  lad  of  twelve  years,  came  over  about 
the  same  time,  and  was  the  first  of  his  name  in  America.  He  was  the  father  of 
David  McKinley,  a  Revolutionary  soldier,  and  the  great-grandfather  of  the 
President.     So  much  for  the  paternal  ancestry  of  "Ohio's  favorite  son." 

On  his  mother's  side  he  comes  from  the  old  Southern  family  of  Allisons, 
who  came  to  Virginia  in  Colonial  times.  A  branch  of  this  family,  from  which 
the  President's  mother  descended,  emigrated  to  Pennsylvania,  where  Major 
McKinley's  maternal  grandfather,  Abner  Allison,  married  Ann  Campbell  in 
Greene  County,  Pennsylvania,  in  1 798.  Ann  Campbell  was  of  Scotch-German 
origin.  Soon  after  their  marriage  the  young  couple  removed  from  Pennsyl- 
vania to  New  Lisbon,  Ohio,  where  ten  children  were  born  to  them,  one  of  them 
being  Nancy  Campbell  Allison,  the  mother  of  the  President.  The  family  were 
farmers. 

It  was  at  New  Lisbon  that  the  young  iron  founder,  William  McKinley,  Sr., 
wooed,  won,  and  married  farmer  Allison's  daughter  Nancy,  in  1827.  This  com- 
bination of  the  tillers  of  the  soil  and  the  moulders  of  the  iron  was  a  good  one, 
and  no  doubt  added  much  to  the  strength  of  character  in  their  offspring  which 
manifested  itself  so  decidedly  in  their  daughter  Anna,  who  was  a  teacher,  and 
found  its  culminating  climax  in  the  Napoleonic  face  and  character  of  the 
President. 

The  life  of  Nancy  McKinley  was  a  long  one,  and  its  record  is  a  simple  nar 

3^3 


364  THE  NOBLE  MOTHER  OF  PRESIDENT  MCKINLEY. 

rative  of  a  good  wife  and  devoted  mother  whose  children  looked  upon  her  as 
the  embodiment  of  all  that  those  two  sacred  names,  wife  and  mother,  mean  in 
a  Christian  American  home. 

The  young  couple,  William  and  Nancy  McKinley,  settled,  soon  after  their 
marriage,  at  Fairfield,  Ohio.  There  the  father  established  an  iron  foundry. 
They  were  plain  and  respectable  people,  without  any  of  the  disadvantages  and 
embarrassments  of  a  great  name.  The  father  devoted  his  time  to  earning  a 
living  by  honest  toil,  and  the  mother  to  making  a  happy  home  for  husband  and 
to  the  training  of  the  children  which  came,  teaching  them  the  cardinal  virtues 
of  truthfulness,  honor,  and  self-dependence. 

From  Fairfield  the  family  removed  to  Niles,  Ohio,  a  village  in  an  adjoining 
county,  and  it  was  here,  about  sixteen  years  after  the  marriage  of  his  parents, 
that  William  McKinley,  Jr.,  was  born,  January  29th,  1843,  ^"^  named  for  his 
father.  The  little,  long,  ungainly,  two-story,  frame  house  in  which  the  family  lived, 
and  in  which  the  embryo  President  was  born,  is  still  standing  in  Niles.  At  one 
end  is  a  portion  used  for  a  store.  Adjoining  this  is  the  vine-covered  doorway 
which  constitutes  the  entrance  for  the  part  used  as  a  dwelling.  The  vine  which 
covers  the  whole  side  of  the  house  is  very  old.  It  was  probably  planted  by 
the  hand  of  Nancy  McKinley,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  associated  with  the  earliest 
recollections  of  the  President. 

Humble  as  this  house  appears,  it  is  a  palace  in  comparison  with  the  birth- 
places and  early  homes  of  Andrew  Jackson,  Lincoln,  and  Garfield,  and,  v/ith 
them,  it  goes  to  show  that  humble  birth  is  no  barrier  to  greatness,  but  rather  a 
stimulus  to  the  noble-souled  and  energetic  American  youth. 

The  question  of  educating  the  children  is  always  a  serious  one  in  a  new 
country.  Educational  advantages  were  poor  at  Niles,  and  the  parents  removed 
to  Poland,  a  small  town  of  some  two  hundred  inhabitants  not  far  away,  where 
there  was  an  academy.  William  was  now  a  young  lad,  and  with  his  brothers 
and  sisters  he  entered  the  school.  His  sister  Anna  became  a  teacher  in  the 
academy.  William  was  possessed  with  a  quiet  dignity  and  serious  habits,  was 
studious  and  manly  from  a  child,  but  he  was  as  vigorous  a  player  at  games  as 
he  was  diligent  at  his  books.  The  family  were  held  in  high  esteem  at  Poland,  and 
to  this  day  it  is  full  of  reminiscences  concerning  the  members.  Everybody  liked 
William  as  a  boy,  and  his  thoroughness  and  brightness  in  his  school  work  caused 
local  prophecies  of  something  great  in  store  for  him.  He  was  his  mother's 
chief  dependence  to  run  errands  and  do  chores  about  the  house,  "because,"  she 
said,  "he  always  seemed  so  pleased  to  help  me." 

Poland  was  a  small  agricultural  and  mining  town  a  few  miles  out  from 
Youngstown,  Ohio,  and  near  the  Pennsylvania  line.  It  was  noted  for  the  integ- 
rity, education,  and  patriotism  of  its  citizens.  It  is  said  no  soldier  was  ever 
drafted  there.     Every  time  a  call  was  made  there  were  more  volunteers  than 


A  PROUD  DOCUMENT. 


365 


the  quota  of  the  town  required.  It  was  while  he  was  serving  as  a  clerk  in  the 
Post-office  at  Poland,  and  studying  at  the  same  time,  that  William  McKinley, 
not  then  eighteen  years  of  age,  volunteered,  and,  after  receiving  his  mother's 
consent  and  blessing,  marched  away  as  a  private  in  the  ranks  to  fight  for  his 
country's  flag.  Before  this  the  boy  had  advanced  so  far  in  his  studies  that  he  had 
already  taught  one  country  school  in  which  some  of  the  scholars  were  older 
than  himself  When  fifteen  years  of  age,  under  his  mother's  influence,  he 
became  an  active  member  in  the  Methodist  Church.  He  was  also  a  great 
student  of  the  Bible  and  a  constant  attendant  of  the  Sunday  Bible  class.  In 
fact,  he  sought  every  opportunity  to  increase  his  knowledge  on  all  profitable 
subjects. 

The  career  of  the  boy-soldier  is  well  known.  At  the  close  of  the  war  he 
had  been  many  times  promoted  and  commended,  and  was  on  the  staff  of 
General  Hayes. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-one  the  boy  came  home  to  his  mother,  and  with  him 
he  brought  a  commission  of  Major.  It  was  dated  in  1864,  and  read:  "For 
gallant  and  meritorious  service  at  the  battles  of  Opequan,  Cedar  Creek,  and 
Fisher's  Hill. 

"  Signed,  A.  Lincoln." 

Perhaps  the  old  mother  was  not  proud  to  have  her  boy  safe  at  home  ?  And 
perhaps  she  was  not  prouder  still  to  read  that  document  ?  The  welcome  home 
and  the  sweet  communions  of  such  reunions  are  too  sacred  for  comment,  even 
if  we  were  possessed  of  the  details.  There  are  thousands  of  mothers  throughout 
this  land.  North  and  South,  who  know  the  story,  for  similar  experiences  have 
graven  them,  in  letters  that  fade  not,  upon  the  tablets  of  their  own  hearts,  where 
"sacred  memories  keep  them  ever  fresh"  and  each  advancing  year  lends  them 
the  "sweet  mellowing  light  of  age." 

Upon  the  advice  of  his  father,  the  young  soldier  decided  to  study  law. 
The  family  assisted  him  by  making  personal  sacrifices,  in  which  Nancy  McKin- 
ley and  her  daughter  Anna  were  foremost.  After  a  year  and  a  half  reading  in 
the  office  of  Judge  Glidden,  the  unselfishness  of  mother  and  sister  enabled  him 
to  go  to  the  Albany  Law  School.  In  1867,  at  the  suggestion  of  his  sister  Anna, 
he  went  to  Canton,  whither  she  had  preceded  him  as  a  teacher  in  the  public- 
schools. 

It  was  in  this  beautiful  city — then  of  6000  inhabitants — under  the  influence 
and  with  the  help  of  mother  and  sister,  that  the  young  lawyer  of  twenty-four 
opened  his  office  and  began  the  batde  of  life  which  afterward  crowned  him  with 
the  laurel  wreath  of  national  fame. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  President  McKinley  and  his  mother,  Nancy  McKin- 
ley, and  especially  to  his  heroic  sister  Anna,  should  we  not  add  at  this  pomt 
that   it   was   this   sister — in   her   mind   and  character  so  like  her  distinguished 


366  THE  NOBLE  MOTHER  OF  PRESIDENT  MCKINLEY. 

brother — who  saved  her  hard  earnings,  and,  aside  from  assistance  given  her 
brother,  bought  a  home  and  induced  her  parents  to  accept  it  and  remove  to 
Canton,  that  the  whole  family  might  live  together.  It  was  in  this  home  that  the 
last  happy  years  of  these  old  people,  with  their  children  around  them,  were 
spent.  It  was  here  that  their  grandchildren  came  to  visit  them  and  the  happy 
family  reunions  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  were  held ;  and  from  here  both 
parents  were  buried — the  father  in  1892,  and  the  mother  in  1897.  ^  special 
photograph  of  this  plain  but  comfortable  cottage,  now  made  famous  by  its  asso- 
ciations, was  taken  for  this  sketch  in  the  month  of  April,  1898,  showing  the 
frees  around  it,  with  the  buds  of  spring  putting  forth.  It  is  the  most  unpreten- 
tious house  in  the  neighborhood  of  elegant  and  palatial  homes  which  surround 
it ;  but  we  doubt  if  there  was  a  happier  home  in  all  Canton  than  this  while 
Nancy  McKinley  was  its  mistress. 

.  Not  more  than  half  a  mile  away,  on  another  street,  stands  the  house  of 
President  McKinley.  It,  too,  is  in  an  elegant  community,  and  its  simplicity  is 
in  striking  contrast  with  the  palaces  of  the  rich  by  which  it  is  environed. 

Every  Sunday  when  he  was  in  Canton  the  great  son  of  this  great  old 
mother  walked  over  the  quiet  streets  which  lay  between  his  home  and  hers  and 
took  her  to  church  in  the  morning,  and  generally  spent  a  part  of  the  afternoon 
at  her  cottage  home. 

Eight  weeks  before  her  death,  on  his  vacation  from  Washington,  her  son 
was  with  her  at  the  church  where  they  had  both  been  members  for  many 
years,  and  they  sat  together  in  the  family  pew,  little  dreaming  that  it  was  the 
last  time  they  should  accompany  each  other  to  the  house  of  worship,  and  that 
their  next  meeting  before  the  altar  should  be  the  occasion  of  her  funeral. 

The  devotion  of  the  President  to  his  mother  was  always  one  ot  the  most 
marked  and  admirable  traits  of  his  character.  Even  in  the  most  important 
political  events  of  his  life,  he  seemed  never  to  forget  her.  On  the  day  of  his 
nomination  he  was  solicitous  that  she  be  present  at  his  house  when  the  news 
of  the  proceedings  came  over  the  wires  from  the  Convention  at  St,  Louis.  It 
was  the  i8th  day  of  June,  1896,  an  ideal  summer  day  at  Canton,  and  the  air 
full  of  golden  sunshine.  Major  McKinley  rocked  on  his  porch,  enjoying  the 
freshness  of  the  breeze  that  was  balmy,  though  touched  with  fire.  Telegrams 
came  every  few  minutes,  which  he  opened,  reading  to  his  friends  such  portions 
of  them  as  pleased  him. 

Ladles  of  the  family  came  up  the  walk  from  the  street,  and  as  the  Major 
rose  to  greet  them  he  asked,  "Is  mother  coming  up  to-day?"  and  the  answer 
was,  "Yes,  she  will  be  here."  About  one  o'clock  the  carriage  drove  up  and 
three  ladies  descended-  The  Major  nastened  forward  to  greet  them.  The 
venerable  woman  with  Roman  leatures  was  the  Major's  mother,  and  with  her 
were  his  sisters 


INTENSE  EXCITEMENT. 


367 


Luncheon  was  served.  Some  one  mentioned  a  comforting  passage  from  the 
Bible  as  appropriate  to  the  occasion.  There  was  at  once  a  curiosity  to  read  the 
passage,  and  Mrs.  McKinley's  Bible  was  brought.  A  gentleman  said  he  pre- 
sumed the  Major  was  too  busy  a  man  to  know  much  of  the  Bible.  "He  does, 
indeed,  know  the  inside  of  his  Bible ;  no  man  better,  I  assure  you,"  said  Mrs. 
McKinley.  The  passages  referred  to  were  found  and  read  by  a  lady  present. 
They  were  Jeremiah,  xx,  1 1,  beginning,  "  But  the  Lord  is  with  me,"  and  Psalrr 
xlvii,  6,  beginning  "Sing  praises  to  God." 


RESIDENCE  OF  MOTHER  McKINLEY,  CANTON,  OHIO. 

After  lunch  the  company  retired  to  the  Major's  office,  where,  with  two 
;elegraph  lines  and  one  long-distance  telephone  bringing  the  news  simul- 
:aneously,  the  excitement  was  too  intense  for  levity.  They  had  not  expected 
;he  Convention  to  reach  a  nomination  before  night,  but  it  came  about  four 
3'clock  on  the  first  ballot,  when  Ohio  cast  her  vote,  forty-six  strong,  for  her 


368  THE  NOBLE  MOTHER  OF  PRESIDENT  MCKINLEY. 

favorite  son.  Without  waiting  for  further  returns  a  gentleman  present  arose  and 
exclaimed  "The  majority  is  big  enough.  Major,  I  congratulate  you.  God 
bless  you,  and  now  you  have  just  a  quarter  of  a  minute  before  you  are  mobbed 
to  greet  your  wife  and  mother." 

McKinley  quickly  crossed  the  hall  to  the  parlor  crowded  with  ladies,  and 
as  his  wife  and  mother  were  seated  side  by  side  stooped  low  to  kiss  them 
and  clasp  their  eager  hands,  the  wife  responding  with  a  bright  smile  and  sweet 
exultation  in  her  eyes  as  he  told  her  the  vote  of  Ohio  had  given  him  the 
nomination.  The  grand  old  mother  placed  her  trembling  hands  on  her  son's 
neck,  her  eyes  streaming  with  tears  brighter  even  than  smiles,  and  whispered 
to  her  illustrious  boy  some  holy  words  for  him  alone.  At  this  moment  the 
bells  rang,  the  whistles  blew,  the  cannon,  thundered,  and  the  beautiful  little 
city  of  Canton  went  stark,  gloriously  mad.  A  vast  multitude  precipitated  them- 
selves in  a  gigantic,  ungovernable  procession  upon  McKinley's  unpretentious 
home,  and  there,  with  wife  and  mother  at  the  windows  with  him,  he  acknowl- 
edged, in  a  voice  ringing  with  resolution  and  sincerity,  his  gratitude  to  his 
neighbors  and  countrymen. 

The  world  knows  the  sequel  to  his  nomination.  The  most  bitterly  con- 
tested campaign  followed  which  ever  occurred  in  the  history  of  America,  with 
the  possible  exception  of  that  of  i860,  when  Lincoln  was  elected  and  slavery 
was  the  issue.  McKinley's  opponent  was  William  Jennings  Bryan,  the  young 
and  magnetic  orator  of  Nebraska,  who  was  the  nominee  of  the  Democratic, 
the  National  Republican  (Silver  Republican),  and  the  People's  parties. 

The  election  day  came  on  November  3d,  1896.  The  wires  and  the  tele- 
phones brought  the  news.  The  Nebraskan  had  made  a  gallant  fight,  but  the 
"  favorite  son  of  Ohio "  had  won.  The  booming  cannon  and  the  blare  of 
trumpets  shook  the  land  from  Maine  to  California,  and  Nancy  McKinley,  the 
farmer's  daughter,  became  the  mother  of  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

On  the  4th  of  March,  1897,  ^^  ^^^  inauguration — the  grandest  this  country 
has  ever  given  any  man — the  proudest  witness  was  Mother  McKinley.  For 
a  short  while  she  remained  at  the  White  House,  and  saw  her  son  and  his  wife 
properly  installed.  Then  she  said  she  was  satisfied  that  they  did  not  need  her 
any  longer,  and  furthermore  that  she  was  glad  she  did  not  have  to  stay  where 
there  was  so  much  ceremony  required.  She  vastly  preferred  her  own  quiet 
little  home  and  informal  friends  at  Canton. 

"  Never  did  the  little  house  seem  so  dear  a  home  as  when  I  got  back  to  it," 
she  said  to  a  neighbor.  "I  would  not  begin  to  exchange  it  for  the  White 
Hou«e." 

When  the  President  took  a  vacation  in  September  he  went  to  Canton  to 
rest,  and,  as  has  already  been  stated,  accompanied  his  mother  to  church,  as  he 
had  always  done  before  his  exaltation  to  the  highest  position  in  the  gift  of  his 


HER  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH. 


369 


countrymen.  A  few  weeks  later  news  came  of  the  serious  illness  of  the  aged 
woman,  and,  though  in  the  midst  of  the  most  pressing  official  duties  incident 
upon  the  assembling  of  Congress,  the  President  at  the  earliest  possible  moment 
hastened  to  her  side.  After  a  lingering  illness,  which  followed  a  stroke  of 
paralysis,  the  end  came  at  three  o'clock  Sunday  morning,  December  12th,  1897 
— almost  the  identical  hour  at  which  her  husband  died  on  Thanksgiving  night 
five  years  before. 

When  the  light  faded  from  her  eyes  and  the  breathing  ceased  the  President 
sat  silent  and  suffused  in  tears,  holding  her  hand.  The  wife  was  by  his  side, 
and  around  the  bed  stood  his  brother  Abner  and  his  sisters,  Mrs.  Duncan  and 
Miss  Helen  McKinley,  Six  grandchildren  were  also  there,  as  was  the  aged 
sister  of  the  deceased — Mrs.  Abigail  Osborne,  the  only  living  member  of  her 
father's  family.  For  more  than  an  hour  after  the  spirit  had  flown  the  President 
remained  sitting  at  the  bedside,  gazing  silently  upon  the  sacred  form  which  for 
more  than  fifty  years  had  been  his  ideal  of  noble,  exalted  womanhood. 

At  daylight  on  Sunday  morning  the  bell  in  the  steeple  began  to  toll,  and  it 
struck  slowly  eighty-eight  times,  once  for  every  year  of  the  long  life  of  the 
deceased.  This  was  a  custom  in  vogue  many  years  ago,  and  it  was  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  some  of  the  older  members  that  it  was  revived  for  this  occasion. 

On  Sunday  afternoon  the  President  and  his  brother  Abner  drove  to  Wood 
Lawn  Cemetery,  where  they  personally  made  all  arrangements  to  place  their 
mother's  remains  beside  those  of  their  father.  While  here  another  touching 
scene  occurred.  Under  tw©  carefully-kept  mounds  slept  the  President's  two 
only  children.  Before  leaving  the  city  he  had  ordered  two  beautiful  wreaths  of 
flowers,  and  he  laid  them  gently  and  reverently  on  the  two  little  graves  while 
the  spot  for  the  mother  was  being  measured  off  by  the  workmen. 

The  funeral  services  were  held  in  the  First  Methodist  Church,  already 
referred  to  as  the  sacred  spiritual  home  of  mother  and  son.  Here,  thirty  years 
before,  McKinley  had  been  Superintendent  of  the  Sunday  school.  Here,  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  mother  and  son  had  come  together  to  worship — a  fitting 
spot  in  which  to  pay  a  last  public  respect  to  her  memory. 

Rev.  Dr.  C.  E.  Manchester,  pastor  of  the  church  and  a  warm  personal 
friend  of  the  President  and  his  mother,  who  had  accompanied  them  to  the  inau- 
guration in  March,  and  was  a  frequent  attendant  and  comforter  at  the  cottage 
during  the  illness  of  Mrs.  McKinley,  conducted  the  funeral  service,  and  it  is 
from  his  address  on  the  occasion  and  a  personal  interview  which  the  writer 
enjoyed  with  him  and  his  good  wife  at  their  home,  in  Canton,  that  we  are  indebted 
for  much  of  the  data  contained  in  this  sketch. 

All  of  the  thirty  pastors  in  Canton  were  invited  to  be  present,  occupy  the 
pulpit,  and  participate  in  the  service.  The  pall-bearers  were  of  the  old  men  who 
for  many  years  had  been   neighbors  and  friends  of  Mrs.  McKinley.     Dr.  Man- 


370 


THE  NOBLE  MOTHER  OF  PRESIDENT  MCKINLEY. 


Chester,  in  his  funeral  eulogy,  declared  "It  was  of  such  as  she  the  wise  man  spoke 
when  he  said,  '  The  heart  of  her  husband  doth  safely  trust  in  her.  She  will  do 
him  good,  and  not  evil,  all  the  days  of  her  life.  Strength  and  honor  are  her  cloth- 
ing, and  she  shall  rejoice  in  time  to  come.  She  openeth  her  mouth  with  wis- 
dom, and  in  her  tongue  is  the  law  of  kindness.  She  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of 
her  household,  and  eateth  not  the  bread  of  idleness.  Her  children  arise  up 
and  call  her  blessed.  Give  her  of  the  fruit  of  her  hands,  and  let  her  own  works 
praise  her  in  the  gates.' 

"  It  is  worth  all  the  cost  of  trial  and  sorrow,"  said  Dr.  Manchester,  "  to  be 
worthy  of  such  divine  portraiture  as  this — and  she  was  worthy  of  it.  Her  moth- 
erhood was  the  crowning  glory  of  her  days.  She  was  by  divine  right  the  gentle 
mistress  of  her  own  house.  Always  tender  and  true  in  her  loving  sympathies, 
self-poised  and  sturdy  in  her  personal  uprightness,  she  ruled  like  a  queen  over 
her  own  home.  The  law  of  kindness  was  the  law  of  her  life.  Her  heart 
throbbed  with  tenderest  care  for  those  whom  God  had  given  her,  and  her  chil- 
dren do  rise  up  and  call  her  blessed, 

"  Another  characteristic  of  Mother  McKinley  was  her  unvarying  cheerful- 
ness. It  was  as  if  the  sunlight  from  the  throne  of  God  played  upon  her  soul 
and  kept  it  bright.  And,  after  all,  that  was  the  sublime  secret  of  her  daily  exist- 
ence. She  might  have  said  to  a  sordid,  grasping  world,  '  I  have  meat  to  eat 
that  ye  know  not  of.'  Her  faith  that  God  does  all  things  well,  that  He  makes 
no  mistakes,  \Yas  the  one  creed  of  her  Christian  life.  She  grew  old  beautifully, 
because  she  walked  with  God.  She  came  down  t©  her  grave  like  the  well- 
ripened  grain  ready  for  the  harvest." 

The  assemblage  was  the  largest  ever  gathered  at  a  funeral  in  Canton,  and 
perhaps  the  largest  ever  turned  out  to  honor  any  mother  of  the  nation's  Chief 
Magistrate.  Members  of  the  Cabinet  and  prominent  officials  and  national 
celebrities  travelled  from  Washington  and  all  parts  of  the  country  to  attend. 
"The  church  was  appropriately  draped,"  said  the  "Canton  Repository,"  "and 
when  at  one  o'clock,  under  the  strains  of  the  great  organ,  the  body  was  carried 
to  the  front  of  the  pulpit,  it  was  literally  covered  with  flowers.  After  the  ser- 
vices the  undertaker  removed  the  cover,  and  the  vast  congregation  marched,  to 
a  solemn  dirge  from  the  organ,  past  the  chancel  rail  and  gazed  upon  the  pale, 
peaceful  face,  passing  out  at  one  door  while  crowds  passed  in  at  another,  until 
thousands  had  passed  the  casket  in  respectful  silence." 

After  this  a  brief  private  service  for  the  immediate  family  and  Washington 
guests  was  held  at  the  cottage,  and  the  carriages,  headed  by  the  hearse,  with  its 
black  nodding  plumes,  moved  slowly  away  to  Wood  Lawn,  where  this  noble  wife, 
mother,  and  grandmother  was  laid  to  rest  with  those  who  had  preceded  her  to 
the  silent  city  of  the  dead. 

During  her  life  Mrs.  McKinley  showed  a  fondness  for  visiting  her  children 


HER  FUNERAL.  3^1 

at  their  homes,  as  well  as  having  them  often  at  hers.  She  spent  one  winter 
with  her  son  David  in  California  shortly  before  his  death,  and  frequently  went 
to  Somerset,  Pennsylvania,  the  home  of  her  son  Abner,  as  well  as  to  Pittsburg 
and  Cleveland,  the  home  of  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Duncan.  Some  of  her  grand- 
children were  nearly  always  at  her  cottage  with  her  and  her  maiden  daughter, 
Miss  Helen,  who  continued  to  reside  at  the  cottage  after  her  mother's  death. 

"Did  you  know  Mrs.  McKinley?"  I  asked  of  Jeremiah  Lind,  Canton's  old- 
est inhabitant,  who  claims  to  have  lived  in  one  street  seventy-four  years. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  responded.  ""■  She  and  I  were  nearly  the  same  age.  I  often 
saw  her  on  the  street.  The  old  woman  was  hearty  and  pleasant  all  her  days. 
Only  a  little  while  before  she  got  sick  I  saw  her  with  her  little  market  basket  on 
her  arm  tripping  along  better  than  many  a  woman  of  fifty  years  could  do." 

"  Her  head  was  never  turned  by  the  glare  of  society,"  said  another 
acquaintance.     "The  common  people  were  always  fond  of  her." 

On  December  15th  Congress  adjourned  out  of  respect  to  her  memory; 
and  coming  generations  will  point  to  the  grave  of  Nancy  McKinley,  as  they 
now  delight  to  point  to  that  of  Mary  Washington,  as  the  resting  place  of  a 
model  mother. 


THE   INSPIRING    SPIRIT   OF   ** GOD'S    AMERICAN 

VOLUNTEERS." 

MRS.    MAUD    BALLINGTON    BOOTH. 


In  the  winter  of  1892-93  fashion- 
able Murray  Hill,  New  York,  was  elec- 
trified and  enlightened  by  a  charming 
woman  from  the  ranks  of  the  Salvation 
Army.  She  was  so  magnetic,  so  full 
of  spirituality,  so  chaste  and  refined 
in  her  language,  that  she  sent  a  wave 
of  sympathy  throughout  fashionable 
circles  by  her  sweet  and  womanly 
presence,  force  of  personal  magnet- 
ism, and  the  clear  and  eloquent  pre- 
sentment of  her  cause.  Up  to  this 
time  the  Salvation  Army  had  been  re- 
garded as  incapable  of  touching  any 
element  above  the  slums,  and  Mrs. 
Maud  Booth  did  more  to  remove  this 
prejudice  and  misconception  and  to 
help  the  cause  of  the  Army,  perhaps, 
than  any  other  person  in  America, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  her  dis- 
tinguished and  consecrated  husband, 
Ballington  Booth,  with  whom  she  is 
now  engaged  as  a  leader  in  the  new  American  Army  known  as  "God's 
American  Volunteers,"  of  which  we  shall  speak  later. 

It  is  impossible  to  prepare  a  sketch  of  this  interesting  woman  without 
introducing  a  partial  history  of  the  Salvation  Army,  which  is  composed  of  a 
certain  body  of  men  and  women  possessing  child-like  faith  and  perfect  devotion 
to  duty,  who  have  consecrated  their  lives  to  following  the  red  banner  adopted 
as  their  ensipfn. 

William  Booth,  the  founder  of  the  Salvation  Army,  was  at  fifteen  years  of 
age  an  evangelist  among  the  poor  of  Nottingham,  England,  where  he  had  con- 
nected himself  with  a  small  Wesleyan   chapel.     So  successful  was   he   in  his 
work  that  at  seventeen  he  was  a  recognized  lay  preacher,  and  at  the  age  of 
372 


MRS.  MAUD  (BALLINGTON)   BOOTH. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SALVATION  ARMY.  373 

twenty-one  became  a  regular  minister  in  the  Methodist  Church.  In  the  same 
year,  1857,  he  married  a  young  girl,  who  afterward  became  so  inspired,  and 
aided  him  in  his  lifework,  whose  life  has  been  printed  and  read  by  thousands, 
as  to  be  known  and  loved  as  the  mother  of  the  Salvation  Army.  Oi  this  union 
ten  children  were  born,  eight  of  whom  are  still  living  and  are  important 
workers  in  the  various  branches  of  the  Salvation  Army.  One  of  the  dauo-hters 
is  manager  of  the  Army  in  France  and  another  in  Australia.  His  daughter 
Eva  is  the  present  commander  for  America,  succeeding  his  son,  Ballington 
Booth,  the  husband  of  Mrs.  Maud,  the  subject  of  this  sketch. 

General  Booth  remained  in  the  ministry  of  the  Methodist  Church  only  four 
years.  His  open-air  meetings  and  his  zeal  on  new,  aggressive,  independent 
lines,  and  continual  goadings  at  the  Church  for  failing  to  reach  the  lower  strata 
of  society,  caused  them  to  disfellowship  him.  He  went  out  from  among  them, 
not  to  begin  a  new  work,  nor  to  inaugurate  the  Salvation  Army  at  that  time,  but 
to  establish  Christian  missions,  and  to  continue  his  outdoor  singing,  prayer  and 
preaching  services,  drawing  scoffings  and  abuse  from  the  crowds  which  gathered 
out  of  curiosity,  attracting,  as  he  desired,  the  very  lowest  classes,  who,  as  he 
said,  came  to  scoff  and  ridicule,  but  invariably  ended  by  listening  to  him,  and  he 
felt  fully  repaid  when  now  and  then  one  of  the  wretches,  as  he  called  them,  was 
converted.  From  Nottingham  he  carried  his  crusades  into  London,  and  it  was 
there  he  introduced  the  drums  and  cymbals  to  attract  a  crowd  when  the  interest 
seemed  to  wane.  His  wife  joined  him,  as  did  other  earnest  women.  Some  of 
them,  as  he  said,  were  reclaimed  from  among  the  very  lowest  ranks.  As  he 
departed  from  one  section  he  would  establish  a  post,  composed  of  his  converts, 
to  carry  on  the  work,  and  out  of  this  grew  the  military  organization  of  the 
Army.  So  slow,  however,  was  his  progress  in  the  beginning,  that  in  1878  he 
counted  only  fifty  stations  or  posts  in  fifty  different  towns  of  England  where  he 
had  labored.  The  next  year,  1879,  the  Salvation  Army,  under  that  name,  came 
into  being,  and  a  thorough  organization,  as  it  exists  at  present,  was  established, 
and  the  wisdom  of  his  organization,  much  as  it  has  been  ridiculed  as  autocratic 
and  tyrannical,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that* four  years  after  the  organization  he 
had  442  army  corps  and  1067  officers,  with  several  thousand  soldiers,  as  against 
the  fifty  posts  which  he  had  four  years  previous. 

In  1873  a  family  of  Booth's  volunteers  removed  from  England  to  the  city 
of  Philadelphia,  in  America,  and  began  to  hold  meetings  on  the  English  plan. 
In  1880,  when  the  Army  was  fully  organized  in  England,  a  man  by  the  name  of 
Railto  was  sent  over  with  seven  women  to  formally  open  the  work  in  America. 
They  came  to  the  Philadelphia  family  above  referred  to,  and  planted  their  head- 
quarters in  this  city,  for  the  reason  that  open-air  meetings  were  not  prohibited 
here,  as  they  were  in  New  York,  Boston  and  other  Eastern  cities.  Indoor 
meetings  were    held  in   New  York,  and,  as  a  result,  hi   seven   months  they 


374 


THE  INSPIRING  SPIRIT  OF  ''GOD'S  AMERICAN  VOLUNTEERS." 


counted  fifteen  hundred  converts  in  the  two  cities  and  had  twelve  corps  organ- 
ized, holding  172  services  a  week.  In  1884  or  1885  Major  Moore  was  sent  to 
succeed  Railto  as  commander  in  America,  and  through  his  disgraceful  conduct 
the  Army  was  brought  into  general  disfavor.  General  Booth  accordingly 
dismissed  Commander  Moore  and  appointed  Major  Smith  in  his  stead,  who 
did  much  to  restore  the  Army  to  favor  and  repair  the  damage  done  the  organ- 
ization through  the  personal  disgrace  and  odium  of  Commander  Moore. 

In  1887  General  Booth  sent  his  son   Ballington  to  take  command,  and  with 
his  coming,  his  wife,   the   now    famous    Maud   Booth,   was    introduced    to    the 

American  public.  The  newcomers  im- 
mediately ingratiated  themselves  into 
public  favor  by  promptly  taking  out 
naturalization  papers  and  becoming 
American  citizens.  Furthermore,  Bal- 
lington Booth  was  quite  a  musician. 
IJoth  he  and  his  wife  were  well  edu- 
cated, and  with  their  good  sense  and 
accomplishments  never  failed  to  win  the 
hearts  of  well-disposed,  educated  people 
when  they  met  them.  From  their  arrival 
in  America  dates  the  real  growth  and 
rapid  advance  of  the  Salvation  Army. 
Mrs.  Booth  was  the  daucrhter  of  an 
English  clergyman,  the  Rev.  Samuel 
Charlesworth,  a  rector  in  the  Church 
of  England,  and  she  is  of  unmistakably 
good  breeding,  for  she  is  gentle  and 
feminine  to  the  finest  degree.  She  was 
married  to  Ballingrton  Booth  on  his  re- 
turn  from  Australia,  September  i6th, 
1886,  in  Congress  Hall,  London,  in  the 
presence  of  five  thousand  spectators, 
and  the  next  year  the  young  couple  sailed  to  America.  This  cultured  young 
woman  came  as  a  surprise  and  a  revelation  to  many,  even  in  Christian  circles, 
who  broadly  and  unreservedly  condemned  the  noisy  and  blatant  methods  of  the 
Salvation  Army.  She  had  been  here  but  a  litde  while  before  she  formed  the 
acquaintance  of  prominent  Christian  ladies,  members  of  churches  of  various 
denominations.  These  she  won  by  her  intelligence,  brilliant  conversational 
powers,  and  thorough  consecration  to  her  work.  Through  them  she  began  to 
be  invited  now  and  then  to  speak  in  this  or  that  church,  and  finally  gained 
audiences  in  some  of  the  finest  churches  and  halls  and  drawing-roorns,  even  the 


BALLINGTON  BOOTH. 
(Commander  of  "  God's  American  Volunteers.") 


A  FAITHFUL  PREACHER  OF  HER  CAUSE. 


375 


drawing-rooms  of  the  rich,  in  New  York  City,  Philadelphia  and  elsewhere. 
Everywhere  her  speeches  awakened  sympathy  and  admiration,  which  were  pleas- 
ing to  her  only  because  they  meant  good  and  advancement  to  her  great  lifework. 
They  also  brought  large  sums  of  money  in  the  form  of  donations  from  wealthy 
Christians,  given,  as  they  declared,  entirely  upon  their  faith  in  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Ballington  Booth,  and  with  this  money  the  great  Salvation  Army  Building  was 
erected  on  Fourteenth  street,  New  York,  where  it  is  one  of  the  architectural  • 
ornaments  of  its  locality. 

Mrs.  Booth's  introduction  into  these  leading  churches  and  the  friendships 
she  gained  from  other  prominent  members  of  society  caused  the  newspapers 
and  leading  periodicals  to  seek  her 
out  and  request  of  her  interviews 
and  articles.  She  readily  consented 
to  write,  and  the  subjects  of  her 
contributions  were  always  the  work 
of  the  Salvation  Army.  Here,  too, 
she  was  a  faithful  preacher  of  her 
cause.  It  was  in  one  of  these 
meetings  that  she  first  called  the 
Salvation  Army  '  "The  Church  of 
the  Black  Sheep,"  which  name  af- 
terward attached  to  the  organiza- 
tion. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  one  so 
devoted  to  the  work  she  had  in 
hand  should  be  separated  from  it; 
but  even  while  she  was  uttering 
such  sentiments  and  winning  the 
American  people,  rich  and  poor 
alike,  to  the  most  hearty  sympathy 

with  her  and  her  husband's  work  the  plans  were  forming  in  England  for  their 
removal.  It  seemed  like  a  great  calamity  at  the  time,  but  in  the  light  of  later 
developments  many  Christians  regard  it  as  a  wise  Providence  which  ordered 
it,  for  the  result  has  left  us  the  Salvation  Army  to  work  the  slums  and  given  us 
in  addition  the  American  Volunteers  to  labor  with  the  working  classes,  artisans 
and  clerks,  with  plans  suited  to  the  higher  plane  on  which  they  live. 

As  nearly  as  we  have  been  able  to  learn  and  judge  the  facts,  the  separation 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs  Ballington  Booth  from  the  Army  came  about  in  this  way:  On 
January  6th,  1898,  an  order  was  received  from  England  at  headquarters  of  the 
Salvation  Army  in  New  York  directing  Commander  Ballington  Booth  to  pre- 
pare to  resign  his  charge  of  the  Army  in  America  and  return  to  England  in 
23S&D 


HOPE  HALL. 

(Mrs.  Maud  Booth's  Prison  Reform  Home  for  Ex-Convicts, 
in  New  York.) 


376       THE  INSPIRING  SPIRIT  OF  "GOD'S  AMERICAN  VOLUNTEERS." 

about  nine  weeks.  No  previous  notice  was  given  of  this,  but  it  is  proper  to 
state  it  was  done  in  accordance  with  an  estabHshed  rule  of  the  Army  that  terri- 
torial commanders  should  be  changed  once  every  four  or  five  years.  This  was 
a  rule  which  General  Booth  had  inherited  from  the  Methodist  Church,  and  he 
believed  it  a  good  one. 

Ballington  Booth  and  his  wife  had  been  in  this  country  already  nine  years, 
and  loved  America,  their  adopted  home.  They  had  no  thought,  however,  of 
demurring  at  the  established  rule  of  the  Army.  But,  on  January  20th,  a  pro- 
test was  begun  entirely  outside  of  the  Salvation  Army  and  even  against  the 
desire  of  Commander  and  Mrs.  Booth.  It  was  done  by  the  respectable  public, 
which  seriously  objected  to  their  recall.  On  February  3d  a  mass  meeting  was 
held  in  Carnegie  Hall,  New  York.  Chauncey  M.  Depew  presided,  and  such 
church  dignitaries  as  Rev.  Josiah  Strong  and  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  were  present, 
as  were  also  such  leading  women  as  Miss  Margaret  Bottome  and  Miss  Grace 
Dodge.     Mayor  Strong  and  other  municipal  and  political  lights  were  also  there. 

Mr.  Depew  made  a  stirring  speech,  referring  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Booth  as 
ministering  angels,  and  advised  recommending  and  urging  their  retention  upon 
General  Booth.  He  declared  they  had  made  the  Salvation  Army  respected  and 
powerful  in  this  country  ;  that  they  were  American  citizens  ;  that  they  could 
not,  for  the  good  of  the  Army  and  the  cause,  be  replaced  by  strangers  coming 
from  three  thousand  miles  away. 

Mayor  Strong  said:  "I  believe  Commander  Booth  and  his  wife  can  do 
more  good  here  than  they  can  in  any  country  on  earth.  I  come  here  to-night 
with  whatever  dignity  there  is  in  the  Mayor's  office  to  protest  against  this 
recall." 

Letters  were  read  from  many  noted  people  commending  their  work.  Miss 
Frances  E.  Willard  wrote  : 

"The  departure  of  Commander  and  Mrs.  Booth  from  our  shores  will  be  a 
public  calamity.  No  husband  and  wife  have  ever  combined  to  set  in  motion 
among  us  so  many  forces  for  the  good  of  humanity  and  the  glory  of  God." 

A  resolution  was  adopted  In  accordance  with  the  sentiments  expressed  and 
a  copy  forwarded  to  General  Booth.  After  assuring  him  of  their  appreciation 
and  esteem,  the  American  people  urged  him  to  recall  his  order  in  the  interest 
of  his  own  cause.  Under  Ballington  Booth  and  his  gifted  wife  the  Army  had 
made  wonderful  progress.  They  had,  in  round  numbers,  300,000  avowed 
friends  and  adherents,  contributing  over  ^2,000,000  a  year,  with  more  than 
30,000  active  soldiers  wearing  the  uniforms  ;  besides,  they  had  been  the  instru- 
ments of  sending  large  numbers  into  Christian  churches.  Chicago  alone  had 
10,000  soldiers,  while  Boston,  New  York  and  Philadelphia  were  other  strong- 
holds. The  religious  and  secular  press  of  the  country,  which  ten  years  before 
was  all  arrayed  in  ridicule  against  the  Army,  now  joined,  with  few  exceptions, 


ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  NEW  ARMY.  377 

in  the  plea  for  the  retention  of  the  commander  and  his  wife.  Many  papers 
went  so  far  as  to  urge  secession,  if  General  Booth  should  not  yield,  and  the 
establishment  of  an  independent  American  Army  if  Ballington  Booth  and  his 
wife  would  lead  it.  Some  of  the  more  bitter  journals  declared  General  Booth 
to  be  an  autocrat  as  imperious  and  complete  as  the  Pope  of  Rome.  The> 
assailed  him  for  his  anti-American  sentiments,  especially  for  his  objection  to  the 
display  of  the  American  flag. 

Thus  was  planted  the  seed  which  so  soon  bore  its  fruit  in  the  establishment 
of  "God's  American  Volunteers,"  as  the  new  Army  was  called.  Despite  all 
the  pleas  and  pressure  brought  to  bear.  General  Booth  sent  over  the  successors 
to  his  son  and  his  daughter-in-law.  They  arrived  on  February  20th  in  the  per- 
sons of  his  daughter  Eva  and  his  son,  Herbert  Booth,  of  Toronto,  and  Colonel 
Nicol,  of  London,  and  later,  Booth  Tucker,  former  commander  in  India.  A 
conference  was  held  between  the  Commission  and  Ballington  Booth,  resulting 
in  his  dismissal,  which  he  promptly  accepted,  for  insubordination  by  refusing  to 
obey  promptly  the  command  at  headquarters  for  his  recall.  Ballington  Booth 
and  his  wife  tendered  their  resignations,  and  Eva  Booth,  sister  of  the  late  com- 
mander, and  her  husband,  Booth  Tucker,  were  put  in  command. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  right  or  wrong  of  the  step.  The  Sal- 
vation Army  is  supposed  to  be  governed  on  military  principles,  and,  with  all 
the  good  it  has  done,  is  an  absolute  despotism,  and  General  Booth  is  its  auto- 
crat, from  whose  decision  there  is  no  appeal. 

Other  telegrams  passed  between  Mr.  Depew,  Chairman  of  the  Citizens' 
Committee,  and  General  Booth,  but  without  avail,  and  on  March  ist  Ballington 
Booth  and  his  wife,  yielding  to  the  pressure  of  their  sympathizers,  issued  a 
statement  announcing  that  they  would  organize  an  independent  Army,  national 
in  its  scope,  and  not  greatly  differing  in  method  from  the  Salvation  Army, 
except  that  it  was  intended  to  reach  the  middle  or  artisan  class.  "Forty-six 
per  cent.,"  said  Commander  Booth,  "of  the  wage  earners  never  attend  church. 
It  is  to  these  we  want  to  present  the  Gospel.  We  do  not  intend  to  conflict 
with  the  Salvation  Army.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  the  section  of  the  popu- 
lation which  we  have  chosen  for  our  labor  forms  in  itself  a  wide  and  responsible 
field."  Their  plans  were  briefly  outlined.  The  features  differing  prominently 
from  those  of  the  Salvation  Army  were: 

1.  Travelling  special  evangelists  of  eminent  qualifications  to  go  from 
centre  to  centre  and  hold  meetincrs  in  connection  with  various  churches. 

2.  Beautiful  music  was  to  be  made  a  special  feature,  the  drum  and  cymbals 
being  largely  discontinued,  and  excellent  consecrated  musicians  invited  to 
enlist. 

3.  Prison  reform  work  was  to  be  made  a  specialty,  as,  in  fact,  it  already 
had  become  an  individual  specialty  with  Mrs.  Booth. 


378      THE  INSPIRING  SPIRIT  OF  ''GOD'S  AMERICAN  VOLUNTEERS." 


The  new  movement  was  launched  at  Cooper  Union,  New  York.  Nothing 
was  lacking  in  the  way  of  numbers  and  enthusiasm,  and  Mr,  and  Mrs.  Booth 
started  with  every  reason  for  gratification  and  encouragement. 

In  her  new  relations  Mrs,  Booth  is  thoroughly  at  home,      Mr.  Walter  W 
Haviland,  in  "The  American  Friend,"  declares:  "There  is  more  than  one  point 
of    similarity    between    Mrs.    Maud    Ballington    Booth,  of   the    Volunteers    of 
America,  and  our  own  Elizabeth  F'ry.      Born  and  educated  in  an  English  family 
of  culture  and  influence,  accustomed  in  early  years  to  the  pleasures  of  social 

life,  Mrs,  Maud  Booth  has  had  it  laid 
upon  her  heart  to  help  and  save  the 
■inmates  of  our  prisons." 

To  this  special  branch  of  work 
Mrs.  Booth  is  directing  her  personal 
attention.  Soon  after  the  Booths  had 
withdrawn  from  the  Salvation  Army, 
Mrs.  Booth  began  a  systematic  visita- 
tion of  the  prisons.  She  found  that 
the  prisoners  gave  her  in  an  unusual 
deoree  their  confidence.  She  said: 
"God  gave  me  in  a  special  way  their 
confidence,  and,  I  think,  the  affection 
of  many  of  them.  It  dawned  upon  me 
how  awful  would  be  the  responsibility 
of  disappointing  it.  Those  who  learned 
to  trust  me,  and  write  to  me  while  in 
prison,  as  their  friend  would  naturally 
turn  to  me  for  advice  and  help  in  the 
hard  struetrle  that  faced  them  on  leav- 
ing  it."  A  problem  with  three  ele- 
ments now  presented  itself  to  Mrs. 
Booth  which  she  felt  it  her  duty  to 
solve:  r.  To  carry  Christ  to  the  men  in  prison.  That  she  thought  would 
be  easy  to  do.  2.  To  find  situations  for  those  discharged  prisoners  who  had 
an  earnest  desire  to  do  better.  That  was  difficult,  in  a  world  which,  she  says, 
"offers  them  no  home,  no  welcome,  no  chance."  The  third  part  of  the  prob- • 
lem  was  to  provide  a  home  or  a  stopping  place  where  they  could  go  after  leav- 
ing prison  until  employment  could  be  secured.  To  conceive  a  duty  is  to  begin 
the  execution  of  it  with  Maud  Booth.  She  appealed  to  the  public  for  sympathy 
and  support,  secured  a  large  house  on  the  outer  edge  of  New  York  City,  and 
christened  it  "Hope  Hall."  She  suggested  the  name  to  the  prisoners  in  Sing 
Sing,  New  York,  and  it  was  adopted  by  their  vote.     She  purposely  avoided  the 


MRS.  BOOTH  ©IVING  DIRECTIONS  TO  HER 
PRISON   RELIEF  CORPS. 


MRS.  BOOTH'S  PERSONAL  WORK. 


^7<) 


using  of  any  name  which  would  recall  their  former  disgrace.  No  visitors  are 
permitted  in  the  hall.  On  one  occasion  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Booth  requested  per- 
mission to  go,  when  she  replied  : 

"  I  have  made  it  a  stringent  rule  that  no  visitors  are  admitted.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  it  would  be  very  helpful  to  our  work  from  one  aspect  to  allow  friends 
to  see  it ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  these  men  are  very  sensitive,  and  I  feel  that 
they  must  be  allowed  all  the  privacy  that  they  would  have  in  their  own 
mother's  home.  They  appreciate  my  respecting  their  feelings  in  this  way,  and 
so  far  I  have  found  the  rule  a  very  wise  one.  'I  his,  of  course,  brings  to  our 
Home  many  self-respecting  men  who 
would  not  go  to  any  of  the  existing 
charities  for  the  very  reason  that  they 
want,  as  far  as  possible,  to  forget  the 
brand  that  has  come  into  their  lives. 
I  feel  sure  that  you  will  understand 
and  see  the  wisdom  of  this  regula- 
tion." 

In  referring  to  Mrs.  Booth's  per- 
sonal work,  "The  American  Friend" 
says : 

"It  is  wonderful  what  influence 
for  good  Mrs.  Maud  Booth  has  ex- 
erted in  the  prisons  she  has  visited. 
Sing  Sing,  with  its  1400  prisoners, 
has  been  her  main  field,  but  she  has 
been  to  the  other  State  prisons  ot 
New  York,  Clinton  and  Auburn,  the 
Massachusetts  State  prison  at  Charles- 
town,  New  Jersey  State  Prison  at 
Trenton,  and  many  other  institutions. 

"The  general  testimony  of  prison 
officials  is  to  the  value  of  her  work. 

Hundreds  are  leading  new  prison  lives  through  her  influence.  Her  method  is 
to  address  the  prisoners  collectively  and  to  talk  personally  with  as  many  as  she 
can.  She  spent  the  whole  of  last  Christmas  Day  in  talking  with  individual 
prisoners  at  Sing  Sing.  In  each  prison  she  organizes  a  Volunteer  Prison 
League,  binding  together  the  men  who  want  to  lead  better  lives." 

Mrs.  Booth  is  making  strenuous  efforts  to  get  employment  for  those  who 
are  released  from  prison.  She  believes  that  nearly  all  criminals  are  capable  of 
a  thorough  reform,  and  may  make  the  very  best  of  men  if  they  are  properly 
treated  when   coming  out  of  prison.     Their  hearts  are  then  in  condition  to 


MRS.  BOOTH  AND  HER  CHH.DREN. 


38o        THE  INSPIRING  SPIRIT  OF  "GOD'S  AMERICAN  VOLUNTEERS:' 

appreciate  whatever  charity  is  shown  them,  and  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  believe 
that  those  who  have  been  under  her  influence  in  prison  and  go  with  her  recom- 
mendation from  the  home  she  has  established  for  them  out  into  the  world  will 
not  again  become  criminals,  unless  they  are  driven  to  it  by  the  cold,  unchristian 
lack  of  charity  which  they  meet  at  the  hands  of  Christian  employers.  Says 
Mrs.  Booth.  "I  am  making  an  earnest  plea  in  every  audience  to  Christian 
business  men  to  help  me  by  offering  employment  to  those  we  recommend  from 
our  homes.  Some  little  risk  may  be  run,  but  is  it  not  worth  while?  And,  after 
all,  I  consider  the  risk  very  small,  for  the  men  that  we  shall  send  out  will  have 
learned  a  bitter  lesson  by  the  past,  and  most,  if  not  all,  of  them  will,  we  trust, 
have  found  the  power  of  God  which  transforms  the  life  and  brings  in  the  influ- 
ence that  can  keep.  If  I  could  get  two  or  three  hundred  business  men  and 
employers  of  labor  to  promise  to  give  a  chance  to  one  man  per  year  from  our 
Hope  Hall,  my  difficulties  in  this  direction  would  be  very  soon  removed." 

In  Hope  Hall  Mrs.  Booth  endeavors  to  transform  the  convict  into  as  nearly 
a  gentleman  laboring  man  as  is  possible.  Charitable  citizens  send  her  new  and 
partially  worn  clothing,  and  each  man  she  starts  out  at  least  has  the  appearance 
of  a  thoroughly  respectable  citizen,  and  he  goes  forth  backed  by  the  Christian 
Influence  and  sympathy  of  one  of  the  truest  and  noblest  women  on  God's  foot- 
stool. Who  knows  how  far  her  sympathy,  loving-kindness  and  influence  will  go 
to  make  an  honorable  man  and  a  useful  citizen  of  many  a  former  criminal?  It 
would  be  a  wretch,  indeed,  who  could  so  far  forget  what  she  had  done  for  him 
as  to  return  again  to  his  old  ways  of  sin  and  crime. 

There  are  few  such  women  in  the  world  as  this  noble  and  heroic  little 
Englishwoman,  who,  with  her  husband,  has  become  an  American  citizen,  and 
who,  though  she  is  yet  a  young  woman,  has  done  so  much  for  the  betterment 
of  her  fallen  fellow-beings,  and  whose  influence  has  reached  up  to,  purified  and 
awakened  the  sympathy  of  the  highest  circles  of  American  society.  Long  live 
Mrs.  Ballington  Booth  and  her  noble  husband,  and  may  their  last  years  be 
crowned  with  a  realization  of  their  hopes  beyond  the  most  sanguine  dreams  of 
the  present! 

Commander  and  Mrs.  Ballington  Booth  live  in  an  unostentatious  but 
pleasant  cottage  at  Montcalm,  N.  J.,  a  short  distance  out  from  New  York  City. 

Their  home  is  cheered  by  the  presence  of  two  bright,  pretty  children,  in 
whose  company  the  hard-worked  parents,  and  particularly  the  mother,  find 
great  delight  when  the  tasks  of  the  day  are  over.  The  picture  on  the  previous 
side  shows  Master  Willie  at  the  age  of  ten  and  his  little  blue-eyed  sister, 
Theodora,  so  like  a  flower, 

"When  her  life  was  five  short  summers  long." 


REST  COTTAGE, MISS  WILLARDS  HOME  AT  EVANSTON.  ILL  . 


MEMORIAL  PICTU. 


THE  WILUARD    TEMPLE  ,  CHICAGO. 

TRANCES   E.   WfLLARD. 


THE   FOUNDER  AND  FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  W.  C.  T.  U., 

THE  QUEEN   OF   LOVE.  THE  ANGEL  OF  TEMPERANCE, 

THE  CHAMPION  OF  SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  REFORM, 

THE  MOST   LOVED   WOMAN    IN  THE  WORLD, 

FRANCES    E.    WILLARD. 


BIRTHPLACE  OF  FRANCES  WILLARD. 


Such  are  a  few  of  the  just  and 
richly  deserved  characterizations 
applied  to  the  woman  of  whom  not 
only  Americans  speak  with  par- 
donable national  pride,  but  which 
sentiments  find  an  echo  in  the  uni- 
versal heart  of  mankind. 

Frances  E.  Willard  died  at  the 
Empire  Hotel,  in  New  York  City, 
February  17th,  1898.  She  had 
suffered  a  painful  illness  of  several 
weeks,  but  on  the  last  afternoon 
she  was  very  bright,  and  up  to 
seven  o'clock  talked  with  interest 
about  the  temperance  work  to  which  she  had  devoted  her  life. 

Soon  after  this  she  fell  asleep,  and  from  that  sleep  she  awoke  on  the  other 
shore.  The  physician  noticed  she  was  sinking  and  summoned  her  friends,  Mrs. 
W.  W.  Baldwin,  Mrs.  L.  M.  N.  Stevens,  Vice-President  of  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  and 
Miss  Anna  Gordon,  Miss  Willard's  secretary. 

In  the  presence  of  these  witnesses  and  the  physician,  the  beautiful  sleeper 
ceased  to  breathe,  and  the  watchers  knew  that  she  had  gone  to  prove  the  truth 
of  the  last  words  she  had  uttered  as  she  was  falling  to  sleep:  "How  beautiful 
it  is  to  be  with  God  !  " 

Let  us  briefly  review  the  principal  events  in  the  career  of  this  remarkable 
woman,  who.  Lady  Henry  Somerset  declares,  was  at  once  "a  character  more 
perfectly  human,  more  exquisitely  divine  than  any  other  I  have  ever  met;" 
and  vv^hose  fifty-eight  years  Charles  J.  Little  asserts  "were  more  than  centuries 
of  a  common  life." 

Miss  Willard's  ancestry,  early  training,  education,  and  environments  were 
all  admirably  calculated  to  fit  her  to  lead  the  great  movement  to  which  she 

397* 

*  This  includes  full-page  illustrations  not  previously  numbered. 


398         THE  FOUNDER  AND  FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  W.  C.  T  U. 

brought  the  courage  of  a  dauntless  leader,  the  ripe  attainments  of  a  liberal 
scholarship,  and  the  loving  kindness  of  a  nature  that  never  lost  the  softer 
attributes  of  refined  womanhood. 

Her  blood  she  inherited  from  the  Puritans,  but  it  was  of  the  Anne  Hutch- 
inson and  Roger  Williams  strain — the  martyr  woman  and  the  apostle  of  relig- 
ious liberty — not  that  of  John  Endicott  and  Increase  Mather,  whose  methods 
were  those  of  force  and  persecution. 

Frances  Elizabeth  Willard's  parents  were  Wisconsin  pioneers,  though  she 
was  born  in  Churchville  (near  Rochester),  N.  Y.,  on  September  28,  1839.  The 
home  of  her  childhood  was  luminous  with  thought  and  sweet  with  prayer,  and 
the  memory  of  it  became  the  inspiration  of  her  life.  She  would  gladly  have 
transformed  to  its  likeness  every  cottage  and  every  tenement  in  the  world 
where  dwelt  a  mother  with  her  growing  children. 

The  Willards  traced  their  descent  from  a  noble  Eno-Hsh  forefather.  One 
of  them  was  the  first  settler  of  Massachusetts.  To  her  parents,  Josiah  F.  and 
Mary  Willard,  Frances  owed  those  inherent  qualities  which  combined  to  make 
her  what  she  was.  She  embodied  the  best  of  these  two  noble  souls.  Her 
father  was  brave,  strong-willed.  God-fearing,  and  a  man  of  intellectual  force. 
He  became  one  of  the  leaders  and  shapers  of  the  political  destiny  of  his 
adopted  State,  represented  his  district  in  the  Legislature,  and  contributed  in 
various  ways  to  contemporary  progress.  Her  mother  blended  piety  with  pithy 
speech,  a  splendid  intellectual  courage,  unfailing  humor  and  unfailing  serious- 
ness— a  remarkable  combination.  Her  spiritual  strength  was  a  pronounced 
feature  of  her  character.  "Her  mind  was  always  occupied  with  great  themes," 
said  Frances  in  after  years.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Willard  were  a  rare  couple,  and 
their  three  children  (Frances,  an  older  brother  and  a  younger  sister)  were  a 
comfort  and  a  joy  to  them. 

When  Frances  was  two  years  of  age  her  parents  removed  to  Oberlin, 
Ohio,  then  the  most  noted  educational  centre  of  the  West;  and  again,  five  years 
later,  to  Janesville,  Wisconsin,  which  was  in  a  partial  wilderness,  and  there  they 
lived  the  simple  and  hardy  life  of  pioneers. 

At  "Forest  Home,"  as  the  Willards  called  their  cottage,  the  children  were 
taught  by  their  mother  and  governess  for  some  years.  When  she  was  seven- 
teen Frances  entered  a  "Female  College"  in  Milwaukee,  and  a  year  later  she 
and  her  sister  both  entered  the  Northwestern  College  at  Evanston,  where  she 
was  graduated. 

Mr.  Willard  removed  to  Evanston,  that  he  might  be  with  his  daughters 
while  they  were  in  college,  and  here  he  built  In  1858  the  home  which  continued 
to  be  the  residence  of  the  family.  Here  the  youngest  daughter  passed  away 
after  "nineteen  beautiful  years,"  and  here  the  father  died,  leaving  Frances  and 
her  mother,  whom  she  christened  "St.  Courageous,"  alone   In  the  world  when 


GREAT  ENERGY  AND  AMBITION. 


399 


the  brother  had  followed  the  father ;  and  to  this  home,  which  she  christened 
"Rest  Cottage,"  she  returned  each  year  to  spend  two  months  with  mother  and 
recuperate  her  strength  by  rest.  The  house  is  inviting,  but  unpretentious.  It 
is  a  two-story  frame  house,  and  is  set  in  one  of  those  spacious  lawns  for  which 
Evanston  is  famous,  and  nesdes  under  the  umbrage  of  great  oaks  and  giant 
elms.  In  summer  time  its  velvety  sward  and  sylvan  environs  form  a  picture  of 
rustic  beauty  and  simplicity  that  is  in  marked  contrast  to  the  palaces  of  wealth 
that  surround  it  on  all  sides. 

Frances  Willard's  energy  and  ambition  would  not  permit  her  to  be  idle. 
Shortly  after  her  graduation  she  began  by  teaching  a  litde  district  school  in  1858, 
and  for  many  years  devoted  herself  to  this  profession.  The  knack  of  teaching- 
came  honestly  to  her.  She  in- 
herited it  from  her  mother,  and 
her  father  had  also  been  at  one 
time  a  teacher,  and,  fortified  by 
her  tact,  winning  personality,  and 
great  common  sense,  it  made  her 
a  wonderful  success  and  tlie  idol 
of  her  pupils.  In  her  autobiog- 
raphy she  says : 

"Between  1858,  when  I  began, 
and  1874,  when  I  forever  ceased 
to  be  a  pedagogue,  I  had  thirteen 
separate  seasons  of  teaching  in 
eleven  separate  institutions  and 
six  separate  towns ;  my  pupils  in 
all    numberinor    about  two   thou- 

sand.  In  my  summer  vacation  at  Forest  Home,  1858.  I  taught  our  district 
school;  in  my  own  home  town  of  Evanston  I  taught  the  public  school  one 
term;  in  Harlem,  two  terms;  in  Kankakee  Academy,  one  term;  in  my  alma 
mater,  the  Northwestern  Female  College,  two;  in  Pittsburg  Female  College, 
three;  in  the  Grove  School,  Evanston,  one  year;  in  Genesee  Wesleyan  Semi- 
nary, at  Lima,  N.  Y.,  t'-ree  terms;  the  Evanston  College  for  Ladies,  two  years; 
the  Woman's  College,  one  year,  and  I  was  a  professor  in  the  Northwestern 
University  one  year.  Nor  did  I  relinquish  any  of  these  situations  save  of  my 
own  free  will,  and  in  every  case  but  one  I  had  from  the  authorities  a  warm 
invitation  to  return." 

Two  years  of  the  above  time,  1868-69,  Miss  Willard  spent  abroad,  study- 
ing French,  German,  Italian  and  the  history  of  the  fine  arts,  visiting  nearly 
every  European  capital,  and  travelling  extensively  in  Egypt  and  Palestine  and 
Greece.     It  was  on  her  return,  in  1871,  that  she  was  elected  President  of  the 


MISS  WILLARD'S  FIRST  SCHOOL. 


400         THE  FOUNDER  AND  FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  W.  C  TV. 

Evanston  College  for  Ladies.  In  this  she  enjoyed  the  distinction  of  being  the 
first  woman  in  the  world  to  be  made  president  of  a  college.  It  was  due  to  her 
labors  that  the  town  authorities  gave,  as  a  site  for  the  new  college,  what  was 
then  one  of  the  chief  parks  of  Evanston.  In  1873  this  college  became  a  part 
of  the  Northwestern  University  on  conditions  proposed  by  Miss  Willard,  and 
she  was  made  Dean  of  the  Woman's  College  in  the  University  and  also  pro- 
fessor of  aesthetics  in  the  faculty  of  liberal  arts. 

The  one  position  to  which  Miss  Willard  referred  as  not  being  invited  to 
return  was  that  of  Dean  of  the  Woman's  College  in  the  Northwestern  Univer- 
sity, which  she  resigned  because  her  views  as  to  Its  conduct  were  not  in  accord 
with  those  of  the  President,  and,  believing  herself  to  be  right,  she  could  not 
consistently  remain.  It  was  this  ill  wind,  perhaps,  which  blew  all  the  world 
good  by  throwing  Frances  Willard  personally  into  the  temperance  work.  The 
venerable  Mary  A.  Livermore,  in  the  "Woman's  Journal"  of  February  26th, 
1898,  thus  writes  of  her  knowledge  of  this  step  : 

"  My  acquaintance  with  Miss  Willard  antedated  the  temperance  reform. 
She  was  Dean  of  the  Woman's  College  of  the  Northwestern  University  when 
I  met  her,  and  she  sought  me  to  talk  over  her  plans  for  the  betterment  of  the 
college.  This  was  just  before  the  women  of  Ohio  were  stirred  to  the  depths 
by  the  ruin  wrought  in  their  homes  by  the  liquor  traffic.  Frances  Willard 
caught  the  spirit  of  the  Woman's  Crusade  and  believed  herself  called  of  God 
to  take  up  the  temperance  cause  as  her  lifework.  Everyone  opposed  her,  even 
her  mother  withheld  her  approval  of  what  she  regarded  as  a  Quixotic  enter- 
prise, and  she  came  again  to  me.  I  saw  that  she  could  not  be  hindered  in  her 
purpose  ;  that  she  had  phenomenal  gifts  for  such  work  ;  that  she  would  win 
women  to  follow  her,  and  that  only  good  could  come  from  the  movement, 
bitterly  as  it  was  then  opposed,  and  I  advised  her  to  follow  the  leadings  of  her 
own  spirit,  and  promised  assistance." 

Says  Lilian  Whiting:  ' 

"  Nothing  in  all  romance  is  more  deeply  engaging  than  Frances  E.  Wil- 
lard's  autobiographical  record  of  those  opening  days  when,  in  Chicago,  she 
entered  upon  the  work  for  whose  cause  she  had  come  into  this  world.  We 
find  her  saying : 

"  '  Many  a  time  I  went  without  my  noonday  lunch  downtown  because  I  had 
no  money  with  which  to  buy,  and  many  a  mile  did  I  walk  because  I  had  not  the 
prerequisite  nickel  for  street-car  riding. 

"  '  But  for  several  months  I  went  on  this  way,  and  my  life  never  had  a 
happier  season.  For  the  first  time  I  knew  the  gnawings  of  hunger,  whereat  I 
used  to  smile  and  say  to  myself,  as  I  elbowed  my  way  among  the  wretched 
people  to  whom  I  was  sent,  "I'm  a  better  friend  than  you  dream ;  I  know  more 
about  you  than  you  think,  for,  bless  God,  I'm  hungry,  too.'  " 


A  MARTYR  TO  HER  SENSE  OF  DUTY. 


40  r 


Even  her  brother  OHver  chicled  her.  He  said;  "Frank,  your  faith  that 
you  will  be  taken  care  of  in  this  work  is  simply  a  challenge  to  the  Almighty. 
Vou  have,  by  giving  up  your  lucrative  position  and  going  into  this  work  without 
compensation,  simply  put  a  chip  on  your  shoulder  and  dared  Omnipotence  to 
knock  it  off."  But  God  only  smiled  in  His  heaven  and  tried  His  child  a  littk 
longer. 

Mrs.  Livermore's  advice  proved  to  be  good,  and  her  estimate  of  Miss  Wil 
lard's  ability  has  been  proved  correct.     She  gave  herself  to  her  work  with  all 
that   she  was    or    had    or  hoped  to  be  or  to  have ;  with   complete  unreserve, 
toiling  like  a  Titan  until  she  died  from  overwork — a  martyr  to  her  sense  of 
duty. 

The  W.  C.  T.  U.  was  organized  in  1874,  and  Miss  Willard  was  offered  the 
presidency,  but  declined,  preferring  to  work  in  the  ranks,  which  she  did  for  four 
years.  But  affairs  were  unfortunately  managed,  and  but  poor  progress  was 
made,  until  1879,  when  she  was  induced  to  become  President.  At  that  time  no 
Southern  State,  except  Maryland,  was  represented  in  the  national  society,  and 
the  whole  yearly  income  was  only  about  ^1200. 

Miss  Willard  had  scarcely  assumed  the  office  before  her  strong  hand  and 
magnetic  spirit  were  felt  all  along  the  line,  and  women  enthusiastically  rallied 
to  her  support  to  carry  out  her  plans.  Her  personality  \v^s  charming  ;  her 
oratory  enchained  the  thousands  who  heard  her,  and  her  printed  speeches  were 
like  blasts  of  bugle  summoning  to  duty. 

In  company  with  her  friend  and  secretary,  Anna  Gordon,  she  visited  every 
State  and  Territory  in  the  Union,  speaking,  writing  and  organizing  as  she  went. 
Then  she  crossed  over  the  border  into  British  Columbia,  and  throughout 
Canada  she  went,  speaking  and  organizing  in  every  town  of  over  10,000  inhab- 
itants, until  she  had  completed  a  gigantic  tour  of  25,000  miles,  and  came  home 
famous  and  with  her  lifework  established. 

In  twelve  consecutive  years  she  stood  before  more  than  4000  audiences  a: 
a  lecturer,  an  average  of  more  than  six  lectures  a  week  for  that  entire  time — a 
feat  equalled  by  no  woman  on  earth,  and  surpassed  only  by  Beecher,  Gough 
and  Moody  among  men.  Since  that  time  the  press  of  the  country  has  recog 
nized  in  her  one  of  the  leaders  of  reform  in  the  world,  and  what  she  has 
said  and  done  has  been  promptly  published.  Without  disparagement  to  others, 
it  may  be  said  that  Frances  Willard  surpassed  all  women  of  modern  times  as  a 
leader.  So  executive,  magnetic,  winning  and  persistent  has  she  been  that  she 
has  fused  and  moulded  the  once  heterogeneous  elements  of  the  W.  C.  T.  U. 
into  a  solid  and  united  mass.  Miss  Willard's  efforts  were  responsible  for^  se- 
curing the  passage  of  laws  in  all  th-  States  in  the  Union,  except  Virginia, 
Arkansas  and  Texas,  requiring  the  introduction  of  the  scientific  study  of  the 
effect  of  narcotics  and  stimulants  upon  the  human  system. 


402 


THE  FOUNDER  AND  FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  W.  C.  T.  U, 


When  Miss  Willard  was  In  England  her  power  and  r>klll  as  an  organizer 
was  made  the  topic  In  many  a  distinguished  company,  this  being  the  marvellous 
element  of  her  character  which  appealed  so  strongly  to  Englishmen.  But  she 
was  not  only  an  organizer,  but  a  diplomat  and  commander  as  well.  She  was 
one  of  the  finest  presiding  officers  that  ever  graced  a  rostrum  with  the  gavel 
of  authority.  Although  so  gentle  In  manner  and  frail  In  physique,  she  had  the 
power  of  holding  vast  assemblages,  as  It  were,  under  her  thumb,  keeping  them 
always  pleased  with  her  bright  wit,  sparkling  humor  and  wonderful  versatility, 
displayed  with  marked  effect  In  Introducing  speakers  at  conventions. 

Miss  Willard  as  a  friend,  Inspirer 
and  leader  had  no  equal  among 
women.  Mrs.  L.  M.  N.  Stevens 
said  of  her  on  this  point:  "Frances 
Willard  knew  how  to  be  a  friend. 
It  Is  not  an  easy  matter  to  be  a  true 
friend.  The  qualities  which  enter 
Into  it  are  the  rarest.  There  must 
be  tact  and  courage,  truth  and 
justice,  love  and  patience.  There 
must  be  that  divine  quality — that 
seer's  vision — which  can  pierce  be- 
neath the  veil  of  appearances  and 
bring  to  light  the  Ideal.  There 
must  be  also  something  of  that 
prophet's  function  which  shall  arouse 
that  slumbering  ideal  until  It  actual- 
izes itself  In  the  real.  She  possessed 
all  these.  No  other  woman  was  so 
truly  the  friend  of  humanity,  because 
no  other  was  so  truly  the  friend  of 
the  Individual.  She  always  found 
one's  best  points,  and  how  she 
loved  all  the  world  knew.      She  will  be  a  friend  forever  to  mankind." 

She  was  a  great  leader,  because  In  her  hand  she  held  the  hearts  of  all  who 
followed,  and  drew  with  her  irresistible  charms  those  who  had  not  the  courage 
to  follow.  All  loved  her  because  she  loved  all.  She  had  faith  in  humanity,  and 
she  drew  all  by  the  power  of  love. 

A  marked  trait  of  Miss  Willard's  character  was  her  ambition  to  be  helpful 
to  young  women.  Having  been  Dean  of  the  Woman's  College  at  North- 
western University  for  four  years,  she  believed  In  the  highest  culture  for 
women.    When  she  was  the  guest  of  Lady  Henry  Somerset  in  England,  young 


FkANCES  WILLARD   AND  HER  MOTHER. 
(■'  SAINT  COURAGKOaS."y 


THE  CHIEF  ELEMENTS  IN  HER  CHARACTER.  403 

ladies  who  were  studying  art,  music  and  letters,  many  of  them  Americans, 
flocked  to  Reigate  to  receive  inspiration  and  help  from  this  gentle  and  polished 
exemplar  of  the  graces  and  refinements  of  the  best  American  womanhood. 
There  was  no  ambitious  girl  she  was  not  ever  ready  to  help  and  encourage. 
The  following  true  incident  no  doubt  has  its  varied  counterpart  in  the  expe- 
rience of  hundreds  of  young  women: 

The  Washington  "Post"  says:  "When  Frances  Willard  lay  dead  in 
Chicago,  among  the  flowers  near  her  was  a  bunch  of  violets  from  a  Washing- 
ton newspaper  woman.  *I  never  saw  Miss  Willard  but  once,'  said  the  news- 
paper woman  the  day  she  sent  the  flowers.  '  It  was  in  a  Western  city.  I  was 
reporter  on  a  local  paper,  discouraged,  overworked,  blue,  homesick  and 
altogether  miserable,  for  I  was  only — well,  I  wasn't  out  of  my  teens,  and  I  had 
been  away  from  home  only  a  few  months.  Miss  Willard  came  to  the  city.  I 
was  sent  to  her  hotel  to  ask  her  something  impertinent.  Miss  Willard  was  ill,  but 
sent  word  that  I  might  come  up.  I  found  her  sitting  in  an  easy-chair,  very 
pale,  but  very  sweet.  I  had  only  begun  to  tell  my  errand  when  she  rose  and 
came  toward  me.  She  put  her  hands  on  my  shoulders.  "Why,  dearie,"  she 
said,  "how  tired  you  look!  Take  my  chair,  child."  And  I  — well,  nobody  had 
called  me  "dearie"  for  so  long,  nobody  had  called  me  "child,"  that  I — well,  I 
put  my  head  on  Frances  Willard's  shoulder  and  cried  it  all  out.  I  had  never 
seen  her  before  ;  I  have  never  seen  her  since,  but  for  the  memory  of  those  few 
kind  words  I  say  :  God  bless  Frances  Willard.'" 

If  we  were  called  upon  to  name  the  chief  elements  in  the  character  of 
Frances  Willard  which  gave  her  such  power  over  the  world  in  addition  to  those 
already  outlined,  we  should  answer: 

1.  Her  indomitable  zvill,  coin^age  and  unfailing  faith  in  the  triumph  of  the 
right.  Once  fortified  behind  a  well-grounded  conviction,  she  knew  no  such 
word  as  fail  or  retreat.  She  was  possessed  of  a  moral  courage  which  would 
have  gone  unflinchingly  to  death  for  her  cause  had  it  been  demanded  of  her. 

2.  Her  generosity ,  Christ-like  love  and  nnselfshness.  She  was  deeply 
religious,  but  so  liberal  in  her  views  that  she  never  offended  anyone  who 
differed  most  radically  in  point  of  creed.  On  the  broad  platform  of  love  to 
God  and  mankind  she  embraced  all  religionists  and  philanthropists.  "Love  is 
the  greatest  thing  in  the  world  "  was  the  constant  echo  from  her  daily  life.  She 
loved  the  human  race  with  that  divine  affection  which  sorrowed  over  its  woes 
and  rejoiced  in  every  advance  it  made  toward  purity,  intellectuality  and  happi- 
ness, while  her  unselfishness  prompted  her  to  offer  herself  a  living  sacrifice  to 
the  causes  she  espoused.  On  her  very  last  birthday,  after  giving  $3000  in  cash 
and  mortgaging  her  home  for  more  to  give  to  the  Woman's  Temple,  she 
wrote:  "  I  have  consecrated  this,  my  fifty-ninth  year,  to  try  to  help  clear  off  the 
^300,000  worth  of  Temple  bonds ;  "   and,  in  her  death,  coming  so  soon  after 


404  THE  FOUNDER  AND  FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  W.  C.  T.  U. 

this  bold  and  heroic  declaration,  she  no  doubt  quickened  her  fellow-women  to  a 
speedier  accomplishment  of  that  great  work  and  saved  the  Woman's  Temple. 

3.  Her  fei'vent  eloquence  and  masterful  oratory.  By  this  power  she  put 
herself  en  rapport  with  other  souls  and  drew  them  to  her.  The  charm  of  her 
speech  ;  the  magic  of  her  idealism  ;  the  courage  of  her  piety  ;  her  strong,  clear, 
melodious  voice,  blending  defiance,  intrepidity,  deference,  tenderness  ;  her  lan- 
guage simple  ;  her  reasoning  luminous  ;  her  illustrations  full  of  poetry  and 
humor ;  her  pathos  deep  and  natural  as  tears  to  a  child.  The  great  hope  of 
her  life — the  ideal  home — stood  ever  before  her  and  transfigured  her  in  the 
presence  of  her  audiences.  Old  prejudices  lost  power.  She  stretched  forth 
her  lovinQT  hands  to  the  women  of  the  North,  the  women  of  the  South  and  the 
women  of  England,  and  made  them  forget  the  past  in  the  rapture  of  great 
expectations  for  the  future. 

4.  Her  extraordinary  comnio7t  sense  a?id  executive  ability.  But  all  of  the 
foregoing  points  would  have  failed  of  the  high  results  that  Frances  Willard 
accomplished  had  they  not  been  sustained  and  guided  by  her  precision  of  judg- 
ment, which  made  her  wise  beyond  other  reformers,  and  that  executive  faculty 
which  enabled  her  to  see  and  compass  and  harness  to  her  service  all  the 
natural  tributaries  and  accessories  to  her  one  great  object — the  purifying, 
elevatino"  and  Edenizino-  of  the  home.  Let  it  be  understood,  she  was,  first  of 
all,  a  home  woman.  And  temperance,  woman-suffrage,  education,  everything 
she  fought  and  lived  for  was  to  make  home  brighter,  happier,  as  near  like 
heaven  as  is  possible  on  earth.  , 

"What  a  good  preacher's  wife  you  would  make,  honey,"  said  an  old  minister 
once  when  shaking  the  brilliant  young  orator's  hand  after  she  had  delivered  a 
stirring  address.  He  was  right ;  and  that  Frances  Willard  never  married  was 
not  due  to  the  fact  that  she  was  insensible  to  the  sentiment  of  conjugal  love. 
It  was  her  obedience  to  the  call  of  conscientious  duty  to  humanity,  with  which 
marriage  would  have  interfered,  that  she  gave  up  the  love  of  her  youth. 

In  her  early  girlhood  Frances  E.  Willard  was  the  promised  wife  of  a  gen- 
tleman who  is  now  a  prominent  Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church- 
To  this,  in  her  autobiography,  she  thus  alludes; 

"In  1861-62,  for  three-quarters  of  a  year,  I  wore  a  ring  and  acknowledged 
an  allegiance  based  on  the  supposition  that  an  intellectual  comradeship  was 
sure  to  deepen  into  unity  of  heart.  How  grieved  I  was  over  the  discovery  of 
my  mistake  my  journals  of  that  epoch  could  reveal.  Of  the  real  romance  of 
my  life,  unguessed  save  by  a  trio  of  close  friends,  these  pages  may  not  tell. 
When  I  have  passed  from  sight  I  would  be  glad  to  have  it  known,  for  I  believe 
it  might  contribute  to  a  better  understanding  between  good  men  and  women. 
For  the  rest,  I  have  been  blessed  with  friendships  rich,  rare  and  varied,  all  lying 
within  the  temperate  zone  of  a  great  heart's  geography,  which  has  been  called 


LAST  DA  YS  AND  DEA  TH.  405 

*cold'  simply  because  no  Stanley  has  explored  its  tropic  climate,  and  set  down 
as  'wholly  island'  because  no  adventurous  Balboa  has  viewed  its  wide 
Pacific  sea." 

In  "  The  Beautiful  Life  of  Frances  Willard,"  by  her  friend  and  secretary, 
Anna  Gordon,  the  story  of  this  romance  of  the  Christian  heroine's  life  may  be 
read. 

Did  Frances  Willard  die  too  early  ?  God  must  answer  that;  not  we.  She 
might  have  lived  longer  had  she  learned  to  spare  herself,  but  then  she  might 
have  lived  less.  It  seems  to  us  no  career  was  ever  a  more  glorious  triumphal 
march  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  and  none  more  maturely  grand  in  its  closing. 

Scarcely  had  Miss  Willard's  death  been  flashed  over  the  wires  before  tele- 
grams and  cablegrams  came  from  all  over  the  world  by  thousands,  and  the 
succeeding  mails  brought  bushels  of  letters,  and  the  express  companies  carried 
tons  of  floral  offerings;  and  not  only  the  "Union  Signal,"  the  organ  of  the 
W.  C  T.  U.,  which  she  so  long  edited,  but  the  religious  and  secular  papers  and 
magazines  were  flooded  with  eulogies  and  reminiscences  and  poetic  tributes, 
contributed  by  hundreds — yea,  we  may  say  thousands — of  those  whose  hearts 
she  had  touched  and  whose  lives  had  been  influenced  by  hers. 

Lady  Henry  Somerset  and  many  others  cabled  from  England ;  and  from 
far-off  Australia  came  several  cablegrams,  and  from  New  Zealand,  and  Jamaica 
and  Hawaii,  Nova  Scotia  and  Canada.  Almost  every  distinguished  clergyman 
in  America  and  many  from  abroad;  and  every  State  organization  and  almost 
every  branch  of  the  W.  C.  T.  U. — thousands  in  number — sent  messages  by 
wire  and  resolutions  by  mail.  Prominent  politicians  and  all  religious  and  mo:-;t 
other  representative  bodies  in  convention,  and  almost  every  prominent  woman 
in  America  in  literature,  religious  or  reform  work,  sent  telegrams  and  written 
testimonials  until  the  mere  cataloeuinQ-  of  the  names  would  be  almost  to  make 
a  directory  of  the  celebrities  of  the  times.  They  all  breathed  the  same  spirit  of 
love  and  devotion  and  confidence  expressed  by  the  Armenian  woman  who 
wrote:  "Two  hemispheres  have  lost  their  friend,  protector  and  civilizer  ;  all 
nations  weep."  And  all  estimates  of  Frances  Willard's  character  were  summed 
up  in  the  words  of  Harriet  B.  Kells'  telegram  :  "  No  other  life  ever  uplifted  so 
many  lives  ;  no  other  soul  saw  so  great  beauty  and  possibilities  in  every  soul ; 
no  other  heart  held  such  largeness  toward  all  hearts." 

No  woman  in  America  ever  had  such  a  funeral  as  Frances  Willard.  At 
New  York  the  most  marked  respect  was  tendered  her  remains,  by  the  masses 
as  well  as  people  of  distinction,  and  then  the  train  went  on  its  long  journey  of 
one  thousand  miles  to  the  West.  At  every  station  sad-faced  men  and  women 
waved  tear-damp  handkerchiefs  at  her  passing  car.  It  arrived  at  the  Central 
Depot,  Chicago,  at  8.30  a.  m.  The  remains  were  accompanied  by  Miss  Anna 
Gordon,  her  private  secretary;    Mrs.  L.  M.  N.  Stevens,  who   succeeded   her 


4o6        THE  FOUNDER  AND  FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  W.  C.  T.  U, 

as  President  of  the  National  W.  C.  T.  U.,  and  other  ladies  prominent  in  the 
organization. 

For  six  hours  the  flower-decked  casket  lay  in  state  in  Willard  Hall  in  the 
great  Woman's  Temple,  erected  by  the  splendid  white  army  of  which  she  was 
the  chosen  leader,  while  the  crowd  filed  reverently  past  her  bier  and  took  a  last 
look  at  the  familiar  and  well-loved  face.  At  5.15  a  special  train  bore  the  remains 
to  Miss  Willard's  suburban  cottage  at  Evanston,  where  thousands  gathered  to 
"welcome  her  home."  The  next  day  the  funeral  services  were  completed  in 
the  First  Methodist  Church,  and  thousands  were  turned  away  for  lack  of 
room.  In  the  afternoon,  amid  the  tears  of  the  multitude — for  all  Evanston 
mourned — and  with  flags  at  half-mast  on  the  public  buildings  and  the  stores 
and  offices  closed  and  all  the  schools  dismissed,  Frances  Willard  was  borne  to 
the  tomb. 

The  remains  were  deposited  in  a  vault,  and  on  Saturday,  April  9th,  accord- 
ing to  her  expressed  wish,  the  casket  was  removed  to  Graceland  Cemetery  and 
placed  in  a  retort,  where  the  remains  were  cremated.  The  ashes  were  placed 
in  an  urn,  and  later  were  transferred  to  a  small  metal  book  and  buried  in  the 
grave  of  her  mother  at  Rose  Hill  Cemetery.  Miss  Willard,  in  common  with 
many  advanced  thinkers,  believed  that  cremation  would  in  the  future  become 
the  popular  mode  of  disposing  of  the  bodies  of  the  dead.  She  considered  It 
also  an  important  sanitary  move  in  the  right  direction,  and,  being  always  in  life 
a  promoter  of  helpful  measures  for  the  betterment  of  mankind,  she  desired 
that  her  body  after  death  be  made  an  example  to  others  in  what  she  believed 
to  be  a  beneficial  reform. 

Perhaps  no  woman  who  ever  lived  was  more  loved,  and  not  one  who  ever 
died  was  so  much  spoken  and  written  about  by  prominent  divines  and  by  the 
religious  and  secular  press  immediately  after  her  death  as  Frances  Willard. 
Her  life,  her  work,  and  her  theories  were  given  the  widest  possible  publicity. 

"  And  woman's  rights  and  wrongs, 
And  mortal  sorrows,  and  the  drunkard's  woes, 
And  virtue's  claims,  by  her  life's  sudden  close 
Have  found  ten  thousand  tongues." 


THE  FOUNDER  AND  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
NATIONAL  RED  CR0S5, 

CLARA    BARTON. 

"Show  us  the  battle, — the  field, — or  the  spot 
Where  the  groans  of  the  wounded  rang  out  on  the  air 

•'That  her  ear  caught  it  not,  and  her  hand  was  not  there. 

*  *  * 

"She  staunches  his  blood,  cools  the  fever-burnt  breath, 
And  the  wave  of  her  hand  stays  the  Angel  of  Death. 

"She  wipes  the  death  sweat  from  the  cold  clammy  brow, 
And  sends  home  the  message:    '  'Tis  well  with  him  now.'  " 

For  nearly  twenty  years,  since  the 
United  States  sio^ned  the  articles  of 
the  Geneva  Convention,  aliening  itself 
with  the  other  nations  in  the  humane 
enterprise  of  relieving  suffering,  the 
National  Red  Cross  of  America  has 
been  Miss  Clara  Barton,  and  Clara 
Barton  has  been  the  Red  Cross  Associa- 
tion. It  is  natural  that  it  should  be  so; 
and,  while  some  few  discontents  have 
complained  that  she  has  been  given 
too  much  power,  yet  it  must  be  re- 
membered that,  after  sixteen  years  of 
unavailing  efforts  by  others,  it  was 
Clara  Barton  who  secured  the  ratifica- 
tion of  the  articles  of  the  Geneva  Red 
Cross  Convention  by  the  President  and 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  to- 
gether with  the  passage  of  an  appro- 
priation by  Congress  for  the  Society. 

Furthermore,  with  her  rare  quali- 
ties of  executive   ability,    tact,    mind, 
heart  and  will  to  organize  and  execute  she  has  conducted  the  Society  so  success- 
fully that  her  country  has  been  honored  and  sufferingalleviatedunder  heradminis- 
tration  of  its  affairs  as  no  other  one  woman's  direct  efforts  and  influence  ever 
?4  s  ^^  0  407 


CLARA    BARTON. 


4o8  FOUNDER  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATIONAL  RED  CROSS 

ofave  credit  to  a  nation  or  relieved  human  woes.  All  the  honors  that  have 
/alien  upon  the  gray  hairs  of  this  aged  woman  are  but  the  shadows  of  her 
good  deeds  and  sacrifices  for  others. 

Clara  Barton,  like  so  many  others,  both  men  and  women,  who  have 
amounted  to  anything  in  the  world,  is  a  self-made  woman.  She  was  born  in 
North  Oxford,  Massachusetts,  in  1830.  Her  father  was  a  farmer,  who  had 
been  a  Revolutionary  soldier  under  General  Anthony  Wayne,  and  was  noted 
for  his  habits  of  precision  and  punctuality.  Her  mother  was  a  woman  of 
singularly  sweet  and  even  temperament,  with  a  most  acute  sympathy  for  suffer- 
ing. The  girl  grew  up  in  a  poor  but  well-ordered  home,  where  intelligent, 
sober  thought,  honesty,  industry,  frugality,  and  a  generous  spirit  of  good-will 
and  fellowship  prevailed.  During  her  childhood  she  attended  the  public 
schools  in  Oxford,  and  then  worked  in  a  factory  as  a  cloth-trimmer,  earning 
some  money,  with  which  she  paid  for  more  schooling. 

At  sixteen  Clara  Barton  began  to  teach,  and  from  this  vocation  saved 
enough  to  give  her  a  year's  tuition  at  Clinton  Seminary,  New  York.  From 
here  she  went  to  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  for  a  short  term  as  a  teacher,  and 
thence  to  Bordentown  in  the  same  State,  where,  under  the  patronage  of  a  few 
progressive  people,  she  founded  a  free  school  for  girls.  At  first  she  was  much 
opposed  in  this — her  first  effort  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor ;  but  with  that 
remarkable  tact  and  unyielding  energy  which  has  ever  characterized  her  efforts 
in  a  good  cause,  she  persevered,  and  "  Miss  Barton's  Free  School"  soon  out- 
stripped all  its  competitors  for  popular  favor,  and  grew  not  only  to  large  pro- 
portions, but  became  generally  esteemed  as  an  indispensable  public  necessity. 

In  1853  the  delicate  health  of  the  highly  nervous  young  woman  gave  way 
under  the  strain  of  unremitting  toil  and  anxiety,  and  forced  her  to  give  up 
teaching.  She  went  to  Washington,  D.  C,  to  visit  relatives  while  recuperating. 
Here  she  became  acquainted  with  the  Commissioner  of  Patents,  and  was 
offered  a  position  of  trust,  involving  the  management  of  a  number  of  clerks. 
It  was  not  common  then,  as  it  is  now,  to  employ  ladies  in  the  Government 
Office  ;  and  the  male  clerks  under  Miss  Barton  rebelled  at  her  attempted  dis- 
cipline, and  determined  to  drive  her  out  of  the  position.  To  accomplish  this 
they  employed  both  personal  insult  and,  afterwards,  slander.  The  result,  how- 
ever, like  Haman's  gallows,  ended  in  their  own  discharge,  and  Miss  Barton 
remained,  with  a  new  corps  of  assistants,  whom  she  trained  to  her  own  meth- 
ods, and  soon  had  her  department  organized  and  running  with  a  smoothness 
and  efficiency  which  it  had  never  before  enjoyed. 

During  President  Buchanan's  Administration  Miss  Barton  was  discharged 
for  political  reasons,  but  after  a  time  it  was  found  that  she  was  a  necessity  to 
the  Department,  and  she  was  recalled,  and  remained  in  the  Patent  Office  until 
the  breaking  out  gf  the  Civil  War,    When  the  gpuntry  seemed  in  need  of  money 


SHE  GOES  TO  THE  FIELD  OF  BATTLE  409 

to  equip  its  army  she  generously  offered  to  donate  her  services  to  the  Govern- 
ment by  continuing  in  the  Patent  Office  without  pay  while  the  war  should  last. 
But  there  was  a  greater  service  for  this  daughter  of  the  Republic  to  ren- 
der her  country  than  that  afforded  by  a  Government  clerkship.  Patriotism  is 
a  passion  with  Clara  Barton,  second  only  to  her  love  for  humanity.  When  the 
Massachusetts  regiment  on  their  way  to  the  front  were  attacked  in  Baltimore 
all  Washington  was  thrown  into  a  fever  of  excitement,  and  she  went  with  the 
enthusiastic  throng  to  the  depot  in  Washington  to  welcome  the  heroes-  The 
sight  of  the  forty  wounded  men  filled  her  heart  with  sympathy,  and  the 
instincts  of  her  special  vocation  asserted  themselves  so  strongly  that  she 
resigned  her  position  in  the  Patent  Office,  at  once  assumed  the  role  of  a  nurse, 
and  tenderly  cared  for  the  sick  soldiers  until  they  were  brought  back  to 
health . 

As  Florence  Nightingale  first  discovered  her  own  power  in  the  encounter 
with  the  group  of  Arabs  who  were  ill  at  Cairo,  so  Clara  Barton  in  meetincr 
these  forty  wounded  soldiers  at  Washington,  touched  the  key-note  of  her 
vocation  for  life.  From  this  time  on  her  desire  was  to  eet  on  the  battlefield  • 
and,  as  the  war  clouds  gathered  and  deepened,  she  petitioned  to  be  permitted 
to  go  to  the  front.  To  such  a  pitch  did  her  enthusiasm  reach  that  just  before 
the  battle  of  Bull  Run  she  advertised  in  the  Worcester,  Massachusetts, 
papers,  saying  she  would  receive  stores  and  money  for  the  wounded  soldiers 
at  the  front,  and  that  she  would  go  herself  and  personally  distribute  them. 
The  appeal  was  so  liberally  responded  to  that  she  filled  a  building  at  Seventh 
and  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  Washington,  and  permission  was  granted  her  to  go 
to  the  field  of  battle. 

General  Buckner,  assistant  quartermaster,  agreed  to  furnish  transporta- 
tion for  the  supplies  which  Miss  Barton  had  gathered,  and  she  arrived  on  the 
scene  just  before  the  famous  battle  of  Bull  Run  and  was  one  of  the  leaders  in 
organizing  relief.  With  her  own  eyes  she  witnessed  the  tragic  scenes  of  this 
and  several  other  notable  conflicts,  among  them  being  the  battles  of  Cedar 
Mountain,  Spottsylvania  and  the  Wilderness.  Throughout  the  war  she 
continued  relieving  the  suffering  by  nursing  and  administering  to  the  sick  and 
wounded.  Her  work  was  entirely  independent  of  any  of  the  state  organiza- 
tions and  of  the  Sanitary  and  Christian  Commissions,  and  it  did  not  end  with 
the  surrender  at  Appomattox. 

After  the  close  of  the  war,  President  Lincoln,  whose  keen  judgment 
recognized  the  superior  ability  and  qualifications  of  Clara  Bartoji,  appointed 
her  to  superintend  the  vast  and  intricate  correspondence  of  the  friends  of 
missing  soldiers.  She  at  once  established  a  bureau  of  records.  Her  accurate 
habit  of  keeping  accounts  and  recording  data  were  here  of  inestimable  value. 
She  advertised  for  information  and  employed  many  assistants,  communicating 


4IO  FOUNDER  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATIONAL  RED  CROSS 

to  them  her  own  comprehensive  power  and  perfection  of  detail.  During  her 
services  on  the  battlefield  she  had  compiled  extensive  hospital,  prison  and 
burial  lists  ;  and,  assisted  by  the  records  of  Mr.  Dorance  Atwater,  a  Con- 
necticut prisoner  at  Andersonville,  she  located  and  marked  with  head-boards 
over  13,000  of  the  15,000  graves  at  that  place  ;  and,  of  the  lost  living  and 
dead  together,  she  found  or  located  30,000  by  means  of  her  own  records  and 
skill  (which  amounted  to  positive  genius)  in  following  other  clues. 

For  four  years  consecutively  Miss  Barton  was  engaged  in  this  arduous 
work,  and,  to  further  its  purposes,  when  the  national  appropriation  was  ex- 
hausted she  drew  largely  on  her  own  private  funds,  and  when  Congress  offered 
later  to  restore  the  sum,  she  refused  to  accept  it. 

Many  of  the  letters  which  she  recieved  from  anxious  mothers  and  wives 
during  this  four  years'  search  for  the  lost  and  dead,  are  treasured  by  her  as 
precious  mementoes  of  the  service  ;  and  fully  as  many  letters,  perhaps,  from 
her  own  pen,  are  treasured  by  those  anxious  ones  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  our  great  country,  as  mementoes  of  her  kindly  offices  in  their 
behalf.  This  colossal  labor  of  love  alone  should  immortalize  her.  The  hopes 
she  sustained  and  the  hearts  she  comforted — aidingf  them  in  the  realization  of 
their  long  deferred  desires,  or  to  resignation  and  faith  when  their  desires 
could  not  be  fulfilled — are  among  those  nobler  pages  of  life  reserved  for  the 
book  of  the  recording  angel. 

We  have  spoken  of  her  using  her  private  means.  This  means  (for  her 
early  earnings  were  long  since  expended  in  charity)  was  accumulated  largely 
during  the  last  two  years  of  her  service  in  the  Bureau  of  Correspondence. 
Her  sympathetic  work  in  this  department  had  increased  her  fame,  and  a  de- 
mand to  see  her  and  hear  from  her  own  lips  the  story  of  her  work,  came  from 
many  quarters.  As  a  means  of  gratifying  this  desire  and  assisting  in  the 
work  she  had  in  hand,  more  than  for  repleting  her  own  purse,  she  accepted 
the  offer  of  a  manager  to  deliver  three  hundred  lectures  at  $100  a  lecture. 
These  engagements  carried  her  to  all  sections  of  the  North  and  West,  and 
she  was  everywhere  greeted  by  large  and  enthusiastic  audiences. 

In  1869,  at  the  close  of  her  work  in  the  Correspondence  Bureau,  Miss 
Barton  went  abroad  for  a  much  needed  rest  and  recuperation  ;  but  there  was 
another  mission  of  which  she  knew  not,  nobler  than  she  had  dreamed.  Per- 
haps the  greatest  reward  to  those  who  have  done  well  in  conducting  a  noble 
work  is  in  feeling  a  distinct  recognition  of  their  services  in  the  form  of  oppor- 
tunities to  do  more.  Within  a  year  after  she  left  America's  shores  returning 
health  had  renewed  her  strength,  and  she  was  planning  for  the  voyage  back 
to  America  when  the  Franco-Prussian  War  broke  out,  and  she  threw  herself 
heart  and  soul  into  the  work  of  nursing  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers,  just  as 
she  had  done  in  the  Civil  War  of  her  own  country. 


HONORED  B  V  MANY  SO  VEREIGNS  41  x 

Miss  Barton  rendered  especially  noble  service  at  Strassbiirg,  and  from 
there  she  went  to  relieve  the  suffering  after  the  fall  of  the  Commune  in  Paris. 
Her  services  gave  her  a  practical  experience  in  the  working  of  the  Red  Cross 
agencies  in  Switzerland  and  Germany,  and  an  acquaintance  with  Empress 
Augusta  of  Germany,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  German  Red  Cross  Society, 
and  won  for  her  the  Prussian  Order  of  Merit.  At  this  time  every  civilized 
country  except  the  United  States  had  signed  the  Geneva  Red  Cross  articles.  Its 
comprehensive  methods,  covering  every  detail  of  caring  for  the  sick,  without 
interfering  with  military  strategy,  enlisted  the  warmest  sympathy  and  interest 
of  Miss  Barton,  and  she  immediately  entered  upon  the  work  of  commending  it 
to  her  own  country. 

To  better  assist  in  this  matter,  she  remained  in  Europe.  For  her  dis- 
tinguished services  in  the  Red  Cross  work,  she  was  honored  by  many 
sovereigns.  The  Grand  Duchess  of  Baden  presented  her  with  an  amethyst 
cut  in  the  form  of  a  pansy,  and  the  Grand  Duke  conferred  upon  her  the 
Golden  Cross  of  Remembrance.  Queen  Natalie  honored  her  with  the  Servian 
decoration  of  the  Red  Cross,  the  Queen  of  Italy  presented  her  with  a  Red 
Cross  Medal,  and  Queen  Victoria,  with  her  own  hand,  pinned  the  English 
decoration  upon  the  little  American's  dress. 

All  this  time  Miss  Barton  was  communicating  with  influential  friends  in 
America  with  a  view  to  inducing  our  Government  to  formally  sign  the  Geneva 
articles.  President  Moynier  of  the  International  Committee  of  the  Red 
Cross  addressed  a  letter  to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  which  she 
brought  to  America  and  translated  in  1877,  and  from  that  time  until  the 
United  States  signed  the  articles,  several  years  afterwards,  she  was  unremitt- 
ing in  her  efforts  to  that  end.  With  consumate  skill  and  energy  she  wrote, 
lectured,  advertised  and  thus  popularized  the  movement.  In  1881,  she  secured 
the  personal  endorsements  of  President  Garfield  and  Secretary  Blaine,  from 
whom  she  had  letters  of  encouragement. 

With  this  encouragement  she  succeeded  in  bringing  together  on  May  21, 
1881,  the  first  convention  in  this  country  to  consider  the  organization  of  a 
national  society.  The  convention  was  held  in  Washington  and  a  constitution 
and  by-laws  adopted.  Five  objects  of  the  association  were  named  :  First, 
To  secure  the  adoption  by  the  United  States  of  the  international  treaty; 
Second,  To  obtain  the  recognition  of  our  Government  ;  Third,  To  organize  a 
system  of  national  relief,  and  to  apply  the  same  in  war,  pestilence,  famine  or 
other  calamities  ;  Fourth,  To  collect  and  diffuse  information,  and  Fifth,  To 
co-operate  with  all  other  national  societies. 

On  June  9,  1881,  the  officers  were  elected.  Miss  Barton  being  chosen  as 
president,  which  position  she  has  since  held.  Under  the  administration  of 
President  Arthur,  in  1882,  Congress  passed  the  neccessary  laws  for  authorizing 


412  FOUNDER  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATIONAL  RED  CROSS 

a  union  with  the  International  Red  Cross,  and  the  American  Branch  of  the 
Red  Cross  was  incorporated  into  the  International  Society  and  received  into 
the  fellowship  of  the  kindred  societies  of  thirty  other  nations.  It  was  to  the 
Forty-seventh  Congress  that  the  honor  of  this  legislative  enactment  was  due, 
but  it  v/as  Clara  Barton's  influence  and  several  years  of  unremitting  toil  which 
brought  about  that  enactment. 

1 

WORK    IN    THE    RED    CROSS. 

Miss  Barton's  serious  work  in  the  Red  Cross  of  America  began  in  1882, 
when  the  Mississippi  River  overflowed  its  banks.  With  her  usual  promptness, 
and  with  less  than  a  thousand  dollars  in  the  treasury,  she  started  for  the  scene 
of  disaster.  But  before  she  started  she  set  the  associated  press'  wires  a-flash- 
ing  to  all  parts  of  the  country,  with  a  double  account  of  the  disaster  of  the 
floods  and  a  plea  for  aid  to  be  sent  at  once  to  her  society.  Aid  poured  in 
from  every  direction  to  such  an  extent,  indeed,  that  more  came  than  was 
needed,  and  the  frugal  Miss  Barton  wisely  put  away  the  surplus  to  answer 
the  next  cry  for  help,  which  came  with  the  Ohio's  overflow  in  1883,  and  the 
Louisiana  cyclone  the  same  year,  both  of  which  were  as  promptly  relieved  as 
the  Mississippi  sufferers  had  been. 

In  1886,  the  Texas  drought  and  the  Charleston  earthquake  were  made 
the  main  objects  of  relief.  In  1887,  the  sufferers  from  the  Mount  Vernon 
cyclone  were  assiste  i  ;  but  the  greatest  work  of  the  Society  up  to  that  time 
remained  to  be  done  in  1889,  when  the  terrible  Johnstown  flood  swept  away 
a  city,  destroyed  hundreds  of  lives  and  rendered  thousands  homeless.  The 
Philadelphia  branch  of  the  Red  Cross  was  the  first  to  arrive  on  the  ground. 
Miss  Barton  gave  personal  supervision  to  the  distribution  of  clothing  to  the 
sufferers,  and  altogether  the  Society  expended  about  $40,000  in  relief  at  this 
point  within  a  few  weeks  time. 

Passing  over  a  number  of  smaller  events,  another  gigantic  task  confronted 
the  Society  in  1893,  when  a  great  hurricane  fairly  blew  the  sea  over  the  Sea 
Islands  off  the  coast  of  South  Carolina,  devastating  150  square  miles  of  terri- 
tory. Miss  Barton  went  to  the  field  and  superintended  the  work  of  relief  in 
a  practical  matter  of  fact  way  that  has  always  characterized  her  work. 
"  Happily  for  the  country,"  says  Dr.  Magruder,  one  of  her  chief  assistants, 
"  the  colossal  work  of  furnishing  assistance  to  this  large  population  has  been 
undertaken  under  the  direct  leadership  of  our  president,  Miss  Clara  Barton, 
who  has  for  the  past  six  weeks  been  doing  noble  work,  and  it  is  surely  to  be 
hoped  that  the  approach  of  spring  will  find  another  magnificent  charity  brought 
to  a  successful  termination." 

Two  months  later  Miss  Barton  made  a  report  from  the  field,  saying  that 
the   Society   had    not   only   relieved   the  suffering,  but   that   houses  had  been 


TO  THE  RELIEF  OF  THE  SUFFERING  ARMENIANS 


413 


rebuilt,  wells  cleaned,  seeds  and  implements  furnished  to  farmers,  and  tools  to 
mechanics,  the  traces  of  the  terrible  flood  well  nigh  obliterated,  and  the  oppor- 
tunity of  self-support  given  the  people,  hundreds  of  whom  without  the 
Society's  timely  aid  must  have  suffered  starvation.  Besides  its  own  expendi- 
tures of  about  $25,000,  the  Society  distributed  large  sums  of  money.  Train 
loads  of  supplies  sent  by  northern  newspapers  and- special  benevolent  contri- 
butions founded  by  fraternal  orders,  churches  and  other  organizations. 

These  magnificent  services  greatly  popularized  the  Society  and  added  to 
the   public  confidence    in    Miss   Barton,  and  spread  her  fame   throughout  the 


CLARA   BARTON   IN  A  CUBAN   HOSPrrAL. 


world.  Many  people  in  the  United  States  believed  she  was  capable  of  accom- 
plishing anything  she  would  undertake  ;  consequently  in  1896,  when  the 
Armenian  massacres  aroused  the  civilized  world  to  intense  excitement,  and 
the  heart  of  Christendom  into  the  deepest  sympathy,  it  was  almost  with  a 
universal  voice  that  the  call  came  up  to  send  Miss  Barton  to  their  relief.  A 
special  corps  of  assistants,  large  sums  of  money,  and  quantities  of  supplies 
were  put  at  her  disposal,  and  she  sailed  for  Turkey.  She  established  her 
headquarters  at  Constantinople,  laid  out  her  territory,  secured  passes  from  the 
Sultan  for  her  relief  companies,  and  sent  them  forth,  with  the  skill  of  a  mill* 


414  FOUNDER  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATIONAL  RED  CROSS 

tary  leader,  into  the  various  parts  of  devastated  Armenia,  to  administer  to  the 
sick,  feed  the  hungry,  supply  tools  and  seeds  for  the  rebuilding  of  the  devas- 
tated homes  and  the  planting  of  their  grounds. 

In  1897,  when  Cuban  reconcentrados  were  dying  by  thousands  under  the 
ravages  of  a  cruel  war,  she  was  sent  to  that  stricken  people,  whose  condition, 
she  declared,  was  worse  than  anything  the  Armenians  ever  experienced  under 
the  Turks.  Miss  Barton  was  now  an  aged  woman,  and  in  delicate  health  ;  but 
from  the  time  she  landed  hers  v/as  a  familiar  figure,  hastily  passing  from  hos- 
pital and  stockade  to  hospital  and  stockade,  under  terrible  heat,  in  tropical 
torrents  of  rain,  and  in  an  atmosphere  teeming  with  malaria  and  yellow  fever 
germs.  A  marvel  of  heroism  was  this  little  woman  of  nearly  three-score  years 
and  ten,  ever  busy,  hurrying  day  and  night  from  one  point  to  another,  where 
she  gave  personal  directions  to  relieve  suffering  and  save  life. 

When  war  was  declared  between  Spain  and  the  United  States,  in  1898, 
ships  were  filled  with  supplies  of  food  and  medicine,  nurses,  physicians  and 
attendants  and  placed  at  her  disposal,  and  when  the  voice  of  war  spoke  most 
harshly  she  sent  the  comforting  and  widely-published  telegram — "  I  am  with 
the  wounded."  Yes,  she  was  there  to  bind  the  bleeding  wound,  to  bathe  the 
fevered  brow,  and  to  cheer  the  despondent  soldier,  far  from  his  home.  And, 
when  the  dread  messenger  knocked  at  the  citadel  of  life,  she  was  ready,  with 
note-book  in  hand,  as  in  the  Civil  War,  nearly  forty  years  earlier,  to  take  down 
the  last  message  and  to  make  notes  of  identification  that  might  comfort  or 
satisfy  relative  or  friend. 

How  fitting  that  after  the  war  was  over,  and  the  snows  of  seventy  winters 
were  gathering  about  her  brow,  Clara  Barton  should  write  a  book,  giving  us 
all  the  details  in  her  interesting-  life — details  which  we  can  but  hint  at  in  this 
article.  The  book,  which  is  entitled  T/ie  Red  Cross,  is  solely  the  story  of  her 
life  work.      It  is  a  monument  to  her  memory. 

Several  times  Miss  Barton  has  been  sent  abroad  by  the  United  States  to 
attend  the  International  Conferences  of  the  Red  Cross  Society.  Her  name  is 
known  and  she  is  honored  throug-hout  the  civilized  world.  Tokens  of  consider- 
ation  and  approval  have  poured  in  upon  her  from  nearly  every  court  in 
Europe  ;  but  more  brilliant  and  glowing  than  the  Red  Cross  brooch  from  the 
Grand  Duchess  of  Baden,  the  Gold  Cross  of  Remembrance  from  the  Grand 
Duke,  or  the  Iron  Cross  of  Merit  from  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  or  the  Red 
Cross  of  Merit  with  the  colors  of  the  Empire — more  brilliant  than  all  these 
are  the  never-fading  ornaments  of  a  noble  spirit  of  tenderness,  devotion  to  an 
unselfish  purpose,  love  for  humanity,  and  reverence  for  the  Divine  will.  These 
qualities  are  the  priceless  possessions  of  Clara  Barton.  They  are  the  gems 
in  her  matchless  coronet  of  honor  unequaled  by  the  jeweled  crown  of  any 
queen. 


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